Among the flotsam of negative news that floats across my digital sea every day, one headline stood out like the mast of a sinking ship.
“Australia in danger of becoming an ‘artless country’ as enrolments in creative courses collapse” read the headline earlier this month.
Admittedly, it was from that well-known hotbed of radical left extremism – The Guardian Australia.
However, it was written by education reporter Caitlin Cassidy, with whom I worked for a while at the News.
I came to respect her as a diligent, critical and highly ethical young journalist.
So that’s some comfort for the culture warriors.
Her report was based on new research published in the Australian Journal of Education that found fewer students were choosing to study the creative arts, and that many arts-based tertiary courses were being slashed.
The research found the former Coalition government’s 2021 ‘job-ready’ graduate scheme had contributed directly to the decline in creative courses and arts student numbers.
The legislation substantially increased the cost of arts studies so the cost of Stem courses could be lowered.
Labor opposed the changes at the time, but has yet to do anything about it now it holds the reins in federal parliament.
So we are back to the eternal debate over the value of the arts — particularly the economic value.
For the hard-headed realists I’ll just leave one figure on the table: $67.4 billion.
According to the latest government figures, that’s how much Australia’s cultural and creative sector contributed to the country’s economy in 2023-24 — a 6.6 per cent increase from the previous year.
The contribution that our music, film, dance, painting, pottery and stories make to the national psyche is of course, as always, immeasurable.
The only way you can measure that stuff, is to imagine a world without it.
But then an artless nation can’t even do that.
The Dunning-Kruger effect atrophies the imagination first.
But because we live in a Yin-Yang world, there is always good news lurking around the corner.
Just as the nightmare vision of a sterile cultural desert begins to loom, along comes the 30th Shepparton Festival.
Yes, you read that right.
Shepparton, the city of sport, cars and real estate, has been celebrating the arts for three decades and shows no sign of dropping the festival torch.
Why this should be the case may seem like a mystery as baffling as the Mona Lisa’s smile.
Then you realise this city has always thrived on new waves of cultural identity and a convenient but solid marriage of business and art.
The 2026 festival program was launched at Murchison winery Longleat a week ago, and after a lot of page-flicking since then, I can say this year’s production is a packed one.
It’s a clever balance of the tried and tested with the fresh and fringe.
So we have the welcome return of festival stalwarts Opera in the Orchards and the Literary Lunch.
Even if the ticket price for these events is well beyond the average Shepparton family budget, it means the big end of town is involved and recognised, which is vital.
But weird and unpredictable past events, like the Strange Fruit people balancing on stilts by the lake at sunset, huge bamboo sculptures rising from the mall and a maze of hay bales at Princess Park at night, are scenes that linger in the mind and become uniquely Shepparton.
Congratulations for delivering this year’s exciting program must go to executive producer Gareth Hart, parachuted in at the last moment; Greater Shepparton City Council and the Victorian Government for their vital and continuing support; and to the small but passionate team of board members who seem to be miraculously revitalised every year.
The 2026 Shepparton Festival runs from March 20 to 29.
John Lewis is a former journalist at The News.
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