Writing Australia: can the new national literature body make a real difference for authors?

Leonid Pasternak’s The Passion of Creation. ‘Writers’ incomes have stagnated below the poverty line and threats to their livelihoods have proliferated.’ Photograph: Alamy

Writing Australia, Creative Australia’s new literature body, launches today, bringing the history of Australian cultural policy full circle: writers were the first artists in Australia to receive government support and Writing Australia represents a renewed focus on the sector after an extended period of neglect.

It’s got a big job ahead of it. Over the last decade, federal funding for literature has dropped roughly 43% in real terms, even as writers’ incomes have stagnated below the poverty line and threats to their livelihoods have proliferated.