During Estimates hearings on Wednesday 31 July 2024, I asked the Minister for Treaty, Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships, Minister for Communities and Minister for the Arts about government support for live music venues in light of The Zoo's closure.
You can read my questions and her full response below, or in the official Parliamentary record of proceedings (Hansard) here.
Mr BERKMAN: I want to ask a question of the minister around the arts generally but more specifically the recent closure of The Zoo which I suppose is in some ways emblematic of a lot of the struggles that smaller and larger venues are facing at the moment. What consideration did the department give to financial support or any other assistance for The Zoo? More broadly, what consideration could be given to propping up struggling venues, given the changing landscape in the arts and music scene in Brisbane and around the state?
Ms ENOCH: I thank the member for the question. Obviously, during COVID, live music venues in particular were hit really hard and we provided a great deal of financial support during that time. I think, like for many people, yourself included, news of The Zoo’s closure has been disappointing for many artists and audiences given it is a unique place in Brisbane’s live music scene as a platform for emerging bands and musicians. We are seeing right across the arts sector a change in audience behaviour which has impacted not just live music but lots of different events right across the spectrum of the arts.
We have consistently backed live music in Queensland, including, as I said, through the impacts of COVID, where we invested more than $16.5 million into Queensland’s music industry through a range of funding programs and initiatives and over $8.9 million to support live music venues in particular in addition to the new funding in this year’s budget. The Zoo accessed more than $300,000 of this funding through Arts Queensland and Arts Queensland’s live music support. We had programs called Play Local and Live Music Support Program. They had been able to access that. As I said, we are seeing increasingly quite dramatic changes in audience behaviour and some of the business models struggling to keep pace with the change in audience behaviour. That is why this live music fund that has been announced now is really critical to be able to support the live music sector to adjust to those
changes in audience behaviour.
Mr BERKMAN: Given those changes in patronage and audience behaviour, has any consideration been given to the possibility of the state actually buying up certain venues so that we maintain those hubs to foster and support live music and up-and-coming bands in and around the state?
Ms ENOCH: Obviously we are a massive supporter of arts infrastructure in this state. We have a new performing arts venue that is currently being built. We have medium-sized venues such as the Judith Wright centre in the Valley, for instance, that provides audience space and performance space. In terms of being able to buy out privately owned companies or businesses, that is not really something that the Queensland government would be interested in. That is a matter for a private business, but we have been supporting them through these incentives, particularly through COVID, with a massive injection of funding to support that private industry.
They are all part of the sector, as you can imagine. We continue to find ways to support them, even through our innovation grants, which is a new package of funding to diversify business. We are trying to support them in those ways to do that. Like I said, we have infrastructure that we have supported on a bigger scale through NPAV. We have partnered with local councils in Rockhampton and Cairns, for instance, to deliver their big infrastructure pieces for the arts. We have the Judith Wright centre and we have got Bulmba-ja in Cairns that we have been able to fund. We are looking at that infrastructure to support the arts sector that belongs to the government, and we are supporting through these incentives for private businesses as well.