Background

For several years, the Federal Government has been planning to write a National Cultural Policy.  In early 2010 there was a submission process and we have excerpts of those submissions on this website.  In mid-2011 the Minister, Simon Crean, invited another round of submissions on the National Cultural Policy.  The discussion paper framed the questions and discussion in a different way but many of the issues have not changed since the previous round of written submissions.

Some submissions are online – click here to have a look.

The Music Council of Australia made a very substantial contribution with a detailed and wide ranging submission.  You can read all 104 glorious pages of it here. This is our submission, which is supplementary to the MCA’s.

Submission on the National Cultural Policy

Alongside the submission by the Music Council on a wide range of topics, the Australian  Youth Music Council presents the following discussion of four topics:

• Small Grants
• Youth Participation
• Career Development
• Management

One of the AYMC’s newest members, Asher Christophers, is championing the Green Music movement in Australia.  The Australian Green Music Coalition is looking for interested people to get involved.

Following the green music panel held at Music Council of Australia’s 2010 annual assembly, a plan has been set in motion to form the Australian Green Music Coalition (AusGMC).

The United Nations Youth Association of Australia has asked the ALP, Coalition and the Greens to answer 9 questions on youth issues during this election campaign.  

Left Right Think-Tank is involved in running “Arts Election 2010″ a forum to engage young people more deeply in the election campaign around the issue of Arts and Cultural Policy.

AYMC’s Erinn Swan was a guest on the Shake Up last friday on Triple J’s Hack talking about the Federal Election.  Hack also covered the I ♥ MUSIC AND I VOTE facebook group, funding for contemporary music and policy discussions about the arts.

Music. Count Us In is Australia’s biggest school music initiative. A project of Music. Play For Life, the campaign involves half a million students in Australian schools and culminates with everyone singing the same song at the same time.

RECOUNT is a new competition for young musicians at Australian secondary schools who want to remix, rewrite or rearrange the Music. Count Us In song.

Should ticket scalping be regulated?  Should it be legal? That’s what an issues paper from the Commonwealth Consumer Affairs Advisory Council (CCAAC) is asking.

Kids across Australia are being asked to record their best air guitar moves in a national fundraising campaign to help charity organisation, The Song Room, deliver vital education and development programs for more than 200,000 disadvantaged children each week.

Music. Count Us In, for those that don’t know, is a massive school music campaign in Australia, which culminates in almost half a million school students sing the same song at the same time on the same day! It’s happening again in 2010, and the big day is September 2nd.

This year the song was written by young people from different schools, and recorded entirely by students.

Lead vocalist on the John Foreman-produced track, Come Play Your Part, is 15 year old Bobby Andonov, from Williamstown High School in Melbourne. Bobby has been singing and dancing since the age of 6. He’s a student of renowned vocal coach, Susie Ahern (Kylie Minogue, Guy Sebastian and Anthony Callea) and he’s through to the finals of the latest series of ‘Australia’s Got Talent’ on channel 7. Listen and register your school.

As well as the program song, Come Play Your Part, there are two extra songs this year.  Find out more about the songs and the students who wrote and recorded them or watch the “making of” doco on this year’s Music. Count Us In songs: