ALMBC Backs Vote Victorian Music, within a national framework
Music Victoria has launched Vote Victorian Music, an industry platform aimed squarely at the Victorian state election on 28 November. It was unveiled at the Victorian Music Assembly at Melbourne Town Hall earlier this month, and national peak bodies, businesses and the Victorian music community were all in the room.
The ALMBC is backing the platform. We also want to say that the Assembly itself was one of the smartest things any state music body has done in years. Getting the whole industry into one room, on the record, in an election year takes nerve. Plenty of organisations would have shied away from it. Music Victoria did not, and the sector will be better off for it now and into the future. Well Done Music Victoria!
What the platform asks for
The request runs to about $28.5 million a year, or $114 million over four years, across four pillars:
- A permanent, legislatively protected Victorian Music Trust, independently governed, worth roughly $4.4 million a year once it is up and running.
- At least $9 million a year for contemporary music, committed across multiple years, including a pilot aimed at the missing middle of mid-career artists and a business development stream for managers, labels, publishers and agents.
- About $6 million a year for music education, paid traineeships in production and technical roles, connected regional touring routes, community radio and the recorded, screen and games sectors.
- About $8.5 million a year for the regulatory side, including gazetted Priority Live Music Precincts, a shift in the burden of proof in noise disputes, a formal investigation into public liability insurance, and a permanent Live Music Desk inside government.
Music Victoria will seek a formal response from every party contesting the November election.
The ALMBC backs the platform
The precinct work, the insurance investigation, the traineeships, the regional touring routes and the Live Music Desk are all the sort of structural reform the ALMBC has been pushing for at every level of government across the continent and our many statements around music industry in Victoria over the last years back this up. Multi-year funding certainty, rather than an annual trip to government with the cap out, is exactly right.
Levy needs to be national
Funding for music industry in each state from a number of state government departments is an excellent idea. Cross-government approaches ensure stability and deep governmental engagement.
The ALMBC led the work on a national Arena Ticket Levy almost three years ago, proposing the levy in federal submissions, engaging deeply with the Music Venues Trust UK. We led the development of the Australian Live Music Venue Foundation as the vehicle through which a national arena ticket levy would flow.
So we are right behind a levy to fund live music, and we are stoked that Victoria is leading the way, however, our members across the continent have been clear that an arena ticket levy needs to be national. A state only levy is not in the national music industry interest, and therefore not in Victorian music industry interest, because:
- It builds an uneven playing field. Grassroots venues in states without a levy miss out entirely, while Victorian venues and projects are supported. Touring is a national business (touring doesn’t stop on state lines). Grass roots live music venues in Alice Springs like The Black Wreath, in Darwin like the Railway Bar, in Cairns like Elixir Music House, all deserve to reap the benefit of a national ticket levy. They miss out on a state-led model
- Not every state can play. The touring map is already being drawn tighter. Laneway just dropped Perth and Adelaide from its 2027 run; Also in Adelaide Harvest Rock took a hiatus in 2026, Vintage Vibes was cancelled in 2024; Wildlands, Spin Off, Listen Out and Heaps Good Adelaide all last ran in 2024. States and regions that do not host the big arena and stadium shows have very little to levy, whilst also losing economically as their punters travel interstate for big gigs, leaving smaller states actually paying the Victorian levy. So a state model quietly widens the gap between the big two capitals and everywhere else.
- It takes the pressure off. A dedicated levy sitting inside a state portfolio gives a state treasurer an easy reason to hold direct music funding flat, or trim it. The levy should sit on top of proper government investment, not stand in for it – that only works in an industry-led model on a national level.
- Does it let the majors off the hook? The Victorian levy is described as being paid by government-owned major venues, but if it arrives as an extra 1 per cent on the ticket price, then isn’t it just the punter carrying it? Our preferred model is a levy that is born by major promoters as much as the punter. The major companies are currently doing more than fine in the Australian market and we don’t believe the cost of the levy should be born by punters alone.
Australia already learned this lesson with rail gauges. Different states, different systems, and a national network that never quite worked, as well as the cost of eventual repair. The live music sector cannot afford the same mistake. A national arena ticket levy, with the promoter, artist, ticketing company and punter each carrying a share, is still the model that holds up, and the ALMBC will keep pushing for it.
None of that changes our support for Vote Victorian Music. Victoria’s music community has done the work, built a serious platform and put it in front of every candidate. We are behind them. We just want the levy piece built once, and built for the whole country.
