Keeping artistic tempers balanced

Stuart Cunningham | From The Courier-Mail | August 04, 2010

WHATEVER else defines contemporary Queensland, the attractiveness it holds for the rest of eastern Australia must rank highly.

I dub the four distinct waves of internal migration that have fuelled the population surge ''death valley'', ''happy valley'', ''nappy valley'' and ''yuppie heaven''.

It all started with Joh Bjelke-Petersen's abolition of death duties, which brought frail Victorians northward seeking financial solace beyond the grave for their loved ones.

Later, the Sunshine State seemed a warmer place to line up at the dole queue.

This was overtaken by young families, unable to afford housing in the big and expensive southern cities, streaming into the dormitory suburbs that sprang up west of the high rises of the Gold Coast, the southern boundaries of Brisbane and regional townships up the coast.

But, as demographer Bernard Salt has told us, the latest wave is the game-changer: after the Sydney Olympics, southeast Queensland in particular became a magnet for professionals pursuing challenging career opportunities as well as wanting lifestyle and family opportunities and housing affordability.

Urban geographer Richard Florida has become famous promoting the idea that the ''creative class'' (by which he means everyone from bohemian artists to young urban professionals), by virtue of where they live, can attract businesses to locate there. This is an overly neat reversal of the usual economic booster strategies that are employed by governments and councils throughout the developed world.

But it does capture the dynamics of cultural consumption. That is what southeast Queensland and places to the north are experiencing a new type of demanding consumer who expects schmick cultural infrastructure along with their cafe latte.

And governments and councils have responded. Brisbane's South Bank is lively testament to the State Government's commitment to bringing to life a world-class cultural precinct in a city that many had thought was barely out of short pants. Lord Mayor, Campbell Newman, after closing down community cultural development and putting up bridges and digging tunnels instead, now has a vision for Brisbane as an education city and an alternative arts hub.

So we have the makings of a lifestyle ''superstate'', as UK creative trends guru Charles Leadbeater said on one of his trips to Queensland recently. But consumption-driven growth and confidence is only half the story.

Have we the human capital on the cultural production side to really achieve a true Queensland makeover?

At the Creative Industries Centre of Excellence at QUT, we have shown that Queensland grew more than 10,000 new jobs in the creative sector in the first half of the 2000s. This was more than any other state in Australia. The creative industries are now worth about $3.5 billion a year to the state and jobs now total about 74,000.

There are well established sectors such as architecture and design.

But we struggle against the weight of history, geography and institutional power.

There is still a net brain drain from Queensland of cultural leaders and those who have the potential to be leaders, particularly in the areas of greatest growth, the creative digital industries of the future.

We lack crucial deal makers, that is producers in the screen and digital content fields that have some of the biggest potential for new wealth creation.

Nothing is likely to change the fact anytime soon that all the large employers and firms in the sector, and the bureaucratic support infrastructure, are headquartered in Sydney and Melbourne and, to a lesser extent, Canberra.

This includes the major broadcasters, pay-TV and telecommunications companies, federal government funding agencies, regulatory bodies, internet service providers, the professional associations representing the interests of the creative sector in games, film, TV, radio, multimedia and internet, and even the consumer bodies which agitate on the consumption side. In the brave new world of fast broadband, Queensland ran a brave but quixotic bid to have the NBNCo located here.

When times get tight or policy does the centralisation shuffle, the Queensland branch offices of the big players are often the first to be sent the pink slips.

Then-premier Peter Beattie, in the early 2000s, was so incensed by the closure of news coverage by the far north Queensland Southern Cross television affiliate that he set in train one of the only times that the federal broadcasting regulator actually censured a broadcast licensee over its failure to maintain the mandated minimum of regional news.

The careers of content producers living in Sydney and Melbourne can be managed better than those here.

Precarious at the best of times for most, a ''creative'' can take some pressure off for a while by taking a job with a regulator, a funding body, or work in a professional association, but still stay in the game, as it were. There are precious few such options to do this in Queensland.

We can, however, develop policies and incentives that take advantage of the lowered barriers to entry for content producers in broadcast and online to enrich the stories we can tell each other at the local and regional levels and state-wide.

We can also provide real incentives for successful Queenslanders to return home, and continue to attract leadership talent in these demanding but exciting creative careers that will kill the Deep North tag forever.

Stuart Cunningham is director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, QUT.