‘Artists as workers’? Re-imagining cultural policy for insecure and precarious artists and cultural workers

In recent decades, policymakers have advanced cultural policies aimed at spurring the economic value and employment growth of cultural and creative industries. The Australian government's 2023 cultural policy, Revive , refers to ‘artists as workers’ and champions the ‘centrality of the artist’ in Australian culture. But a closer examination of the conditions of cultural work yields a gloomy perspective on Australian cultural labour markets. This paper collates and analyses Australian Bureau of Statistics employment data to show that cultural work in Australia is poorly paid, unequal, insecure and precarious. Adopting a political economy analysis, we argue that social, cultural and industry policy settings favour large firms at the expense of artists and cultural workers. In response, we propose a number of policy interventions. It is possible to re-imagine a world of cultural work in which strong cultural, social and employment protections allow artists and cultural workers a dignified creative life.