The Victorian Government has announced a run of commitments for contemporary music this week, for what is a significant result for the Vote Victorian Music campaign.
The announcements include $4 million for regional touring grants directed to local promoters, $1 million for regional live music festivals, a permanent Live Music Desk inside government, reform of EPA noise regulation, stronger protections for live music venues, funding for all-ages events, a commitment to feature Victorian music in Victorian Government advertising, and the gazetting of Live Music Precinct protections.
This follows an extensive campaign that began with Music Victoria’s successful statewide assembly.
On noise reform, ALMBC made a formal submission to the Victorian EPA’s live music precinct noise regulation review in April, after raising deep concerns directly with EPA senior staff and government about the review’s framing. Two things changed as a direct result of that advocacy: submissions were opened up to any interested body, and other live music stakeholders such as booking agents, promoters and publicists were given a way into the process, neither of which was available when the review first launched.
Our EPA submission earlier this year argued Agent of Change alone doesn’t protect venues from developers and legacy permits, pointed to cases like the Night Cat, and called for Victoria to adopt Special Entertainment Precincts on the same statutory footing as NSW and Queensland. This announcement backs that position. Gazetted precinct protections, to remedy the significant vulnerability of venues, is exactly what we’ve been asking the Victorian Government to do for many years, alongside issues such as insurance and superannuation.
ALMBC backed the Australian Festivals Association’s call last year to scrap Victoria’s Places of Public Entertainment permit, an extra layer of red tape no other state carries.
We welcomed the $1.2 million regional touring line in this year’s state budget in May but said plainly it read as an annual top-up rather than the long-term structural commitment the regional sector needs to plan around. A $4 million commitment is a different order of investment, and a much closer match to what we’ve been asking for.
The Live Music Desk is a great win, following downgrading of Creative Victoria budgets over recent years and although it is simply partly replacing some of the many creative government positions that were previously cut, having a dedicated music desk is a great step forward.
Interestingly, Labor has not backed the levy. The ALMBC had always taken the view that any levy should be national, and paid for my major companies as well as punters, in order to support regional and remote venues across the whole continent equally.
