HOT on the heels of the ACT Liberals’ announcement of arts policy, Art Minister Joy Burch headed for Gorman House Arts Centre to announce her party’s policy, one aimed firmly at arts facilities and youth. 

The setting was not accidental. Gorman House is one of the likely winners, with a promised $1 million upgrading. As well, Ainslie Arts Centre, which Gorman House administers, is scheduled for development.

A plan to bring back the Multicultural Fringe is flanked by an completely new plan to fund poetry slams in schools from existing funds.

ACT Labor, if elected, will commit to:

Deliver $4 million over four years to develop to develop the Kingston Arts Precinct into a visual arts hub and the Ainslie Arts Centre into a musical arts hub;

Invest $1 million over two years to upgrade to the Gorman House Arts Centre;

Provide $750,000 for a feasibility, site selection and design study into building

a new theatre in Civic capable of attracting international and national productions including ballet, opera and theatre;

Make poetry more accessible to young Canberrans, with $10,000 Poetry Slam competitions across ACT Government schools, one in the north and one in the south, in order  to get young people to engage in poetry as a way of expressing themselves; and

Bring back the Fringe Festival to Canberra’s CBD from next year.

Ms Burch will joy the Liberals’ Vicki Dunne and the Greens’ Caroline Le Couteur in outlining their arts polices at the Childers group forum at 5.30pm today in the Canberra Museum and Gallery.