Tony Abbott, Barry Cohen, and such a rush of authenticity, why is it I feel nauseous?

(Above: a lovely shell craft display item. Ask your local unemployed artist to knock one up for you, and if the bum refuses, become an artist yourself and do it yourself, and teach the bum about the power of the free market. You see, the arts are that easy, any one can do them).

It's good news week,
Someone's dropped a bomb somewhere,
Contaminating atmosphere
And blackening the sky,
It's good news week,
Someones found a way to give,
The rotting dead a will to live,
Go on and never die.

Have you heard the news?
What did it say?
Who's won that race?
What's the weather like today?

So what's the news today?

Oh god, the tedium, the ennui, that's the news today. There's Tony Abbott explaining Abbott: Why I journeyed into the dead heart (and got lost like a city bred goose somewhere around Fossil creek):

That’s how I came to be on a quad bike, low on fuel, following tyre tracks in the gathering dark earlier this week. That’s how I sampled a witchety grub and honey ants dug up by the women of an outstation called Ukaka.

Yep, like any number of outback tourists, the brave lad has now sampled witchetty grubs. What next for the intrepid north shore warrior? A trip to Penrith to sample chops and three vegetables as a way of relating to authentic working class life?

(A tasty serve of witchetty grubs with bunya nuts and quandong dipping sauce. Yum, here).

Even more remarkable, Abbott leads with a further series of cliches which suggests he doesn't have a clue, opening with a truly original line about drop ins as delivered by locals:

In 2001, on my first trip to Cape York as a cabinet minister, a local person had likened government officials to seagulls: whities who fly in, scratch around, and fly off.

Oh that's so novel and new and clever.

Ever since, I have tried to build ongoing relationships with indigenous people based on something more than the standard drive around the community, meeting with the local council and, perhaps, visit to the art centre.

So instead sample some witchety grubs and honey ants, and get lost, and then fly out? (and for god's sake can we just spell them as witchetty grubs, the spell checker's giving me grief every time we adopt the Abbott way. Dear lord, is a new English curriculum needed in our schools, or what).

Proving that you're an inept bushman doesn't impress as a qualification, nor does this kind of blather:

Most remote Aboriginal people are only a couple of generations away from a hunter gather existence. Many have pre-modern connectedness to land, systems of kinship obligation, and sense of the sacred. This helps to explain contemporary Australia’s fascination with indigenous culture. Our mourning for the loss of so much traditional culture, in part, reflects regret for our own loss of authenticity.

What on earth does he mean? Is he inauthentic? Does he feel he's lost his authenticity? Well let him speak for himself, and not mumble on about the regret at a loss of authenticity in others. As soon as I hear people speak of authenticity, I reach for my gun. Mumbo jumbo has that effect.

Abbott means well, no doubt, and has visited the outback on a number of occasions, but I'm willing to bet I've spent more time than him living and working in the dead heart, and it doesn't give me a feeling of authenticity.

Well you can read the rest of Abbott the intrepid outback venturer at your leisure, but I was after really exciting loonery, a real loon pond feature-ette.

And sure enough I found out that Barry Cohen's wife Rae is a dab quilter, and he's not a half bad scribbler, and neither of them need any subsidy, thank you very much, as he explains in Sorry, but some have to suffer for their art.

It turns out that Cohen was an arts minister in the Hawke government, and now that he's reached a certain age, he feels the need to imitate a grumpy old man. And is such a complete success, surely he'll be one of the few actors to keep in a regular job in these troubled days.

Cohen is one of those guys who should at a certain age have retired to playing with model train sets along with retired engineers and harumphers about inauthentic people, in contrast to authentic people doing authentic work:

Most occupations, be they clerks, sales assistants, miners, shearers, boilermakers, doctors, dentists or school teachers, have a limited number of positions available which, once filled, guarantees that those seeking employment in that area will look further afield. It's called the free market and it works.

There aren't thousands of aspiring boilermakers lining up for jobs that don't exist. They find work that puts a roof over their heads, food on the table and financial security.

Well actually there aren't thousands of aspiring artists lining up for jobs that don't exist either, and the notion that artists sustain a living by sucking on the public teat is surely one of the great myth-making follies. If you rely on an arts bureaucrat's whims to make a living, better sign up for the dole right now:

Artists, and I use the word loosely, are an entirely different kettle of fish. We must remember that there are millions of them in Australia out of a population of 22 million. Precisely how many I have no idea, but picture for a moment all those you know who fancy themselves as artists: painters, sculptors, singers, musicians, dancers, actors, composers and the millions of handicraft artists that indulge in embroidery, tatting, quilting and the like.

Yes and picture all those deluded scribblers who confuse handicrafts with other arts. And can I just say how bitterly I resent shell craft not being mentioned, as it's an ideal way to create decorative boxes, mirror frames and fanciful soap dishes to give your bathroom a colourful marine flourish.

Well he did say he was going to use the word 'arts' loosely, but shouldn't he have added 'goosely'?

Back to Cohen as he keeps conflating away:

My First Lady, the beauteous Rae, is a dab hand at any craft she puts her mind to. Her days are full making magnificent quilts. Recently, together with a local quilting group she delivered 73 quilts to fire victims in Victoria.

Does she earn anything from her art? Not a cent. Does she expect to? No and nor do her fellow quilters. They do it because they love doing it. It is an art but it is also their hobby.

I've been a little luckier over the past 20 years as a columnist with eight books, seven of which made the best-seller list. It's been a nice little earner, but thank God it wasn't my only source of income.

Oh dear god, you mean scribbling such tomes as Life with Gough, Whitlam to Winston, The Almost Complete Gough, How to Become Prime Minister, The Yartz, What about the Workers, The Life of The Party - Political Anecdotes, and After the Party? Not a decent novel or collection of short stories amongst them? Not that I'm in to book burning, but I can cheerfully say I've never read a Cohen work, and have quite happily passed up the opportunity to buy several in assorted op shop fifty cent sales.

Which is perhaps just as well, because it doesn't matter, because people just do it for the love of it:

Like Rae, I write because I love writing. Would I continue if there was no longer a market? Almost certainly, because of the pleasure it brings and not because of the financial reward.

A few artists are extremely well paid, earning in the millions, while a substantial number make a good living. However, in the arts, unlike most other trades and professions, there are 10 times more practitioners than there are opportunities for fame and fortune.

Never mind. What's remarkable is that a one time federal minister in the field peddles drivel about the need for artists to re-enact scenes from La bohème while starving in garrets.

It is of course a nonsense, and subsidy is an essential for many art forms, and generally worthwhile, except when Cate Blanchett opens her mouth, and tries to explain why subsidy is worthwhile (The arts are far more than just another industry). Never let an actor out on the stage without someone else's script to read.

The arts community should be honest with aspiring artists and warn them that their worth will be determined by the market, by who buys their records, books, paintings or pays to see them perform.

Well actually no, you goose. If you happen to be in an orchestra, you're not going to make a living through people buying your records. Nor if you're an opera singer. Without subsidy, classical music would be dead in an instant. Some might not care, some might not mourn the passing of its public performance in Australia. But at least they wouldn't carry on about how a free market should determine how artists make a living, or pays to see them perform.

Some expect governments to provide. And they do. The federal government picks up the tab for a vast number of artistic activities. Indeed the spending on everything from the National Gallery through to the Film and Television School comes to $696 million.

And then there's the ABC, SBS and extensive state and local government programs. Governments are continually expanding their arts programs, creating opportunities for artists while stimulating tourism and ensuring the arts are more widely enjoyed.

But here's the thing, since we've moved from quilts to film and television. If you were a television programmer, would you cheerfully drop $500,000 on an hour of television, when you could pick up another hour from the United States for a licence fee of $50,000? And still garner respectable ratings as you used the fodder as spacing for your television commercials?

And yet Australians do watch Australian drama on Australian television, courtesy of subsidy for the more expensive forms, with the Australian government handily helping out on the first two underbellies.

In a market of 22 million, up against the powerhouse of a dominant set of players, supported by a domestic market of 300 million, and a well entrenched choke hold on the international market, it's impossible to compete with US product on a level 'free market' playing field. Through the nineteen thirties and forties and fifties and sixties, Australia simply didn't see its own culture or faces on the screen, with a few honourable exceptions.

Now you might not care, but the few films that were made - by the likes of Chauvel and Ken Hall - are precious indicators of lost times, and old Australia's cultural values - and while the industry struggles for relevance today, and is mainly of interest for the way it's lost favour with audiences, the reality is that without subsidy, there simply wouldn't be any kind of high end film or television production.

It's incredibly tiresome to trek back over this territory time and again, especially when it's a former minister, carrying on about the virtues of fucking quilting and his own inane scribbling.

What's even worse is that this kind of nonsense is the best The Australian can apparently do in relation to the recent Throsby report into the arts:

We are indebted to David Throsby for his latest report on the plight of our artists. It's the 11th in a similar vein over the past 30 years. What is needed is some solutions.

Well one thing's for sure. There's no hope of a solution from Cohen as he beavers away leaving no cliche or free market nightmare unturned:

Let's hope we don't go the way as some European countries where those who are declared to be artists are guaranteed a salary for life. Denmark is one such country and so is Holland. Such a system guarantees there are any number of artists beavering away filling up warehouses with paintings no one will ever see.

There is a vital role for governments to play in developing talented artists, but please spare us from the nonsense that everyone who declares themselves an artist should be guaranteed an income.

Actually there's a vital role for the media to play in analysing the situation of the arts and artists in Australia, but please spare us from the nonsense that artists go around declaring that everyone who declares themselves an artist should be guaranteed an income for life.

Nobody's said that you goose, and even Cate Blanchett didn't claim that artists are treated as chimney-sweeps were back in Dickens' day. Go back to playing with your model train sets, and don't worry about the way in the future the models for artists making a buck will rapidly change, especially seeing how easy it is these days to pirate books, music, movies and television.

Ever worked out how a free market can compete with free, Mr. Cohen?

The Australian? Think. Again.

But there you have it, in the news today. Witchetty grubs and quilting as authentic signs of Australian life. Pardon me while I wander out into the authentic back yard with its authentic outside toilet, and heave a little ...

(Below: why even Homer Simpson can do great art, and for free too).