Creative Australia has today announced the recipients of the 2025 Creative Australia Awards, honouring the contribution of Australian artists across literature and performing, visual and community arts.

This year marks the third year of the Awards, which were established in 2023 to take the place of the Australia Council Awards.

This year’s recipients of the $25,000 Don Banks Music Award are musicians Raymond Ahn and Peter (“Blackie”) Black. Both are founding members of punk rock band The Hard-Ons – Ahn as a bass guitarist, Black as a guitarist and backing vocalist. Formed in 1982, the band reunited in 1997 and has released three studio albums and two EPs. The band is currently on tour across Australia. Also members of group Nunchukka Superfly, Ahn and Black are pioneers of the DIY musical aesthetic at the heart of Australia’s punk scene.

Melbourne-based musician Robin Fox has been awarded the Emerging Experimental Arts award.

Fox is a prolific Australian experimental audiovisual artist known for his laser works that “synchronise sound & visual electricity”, performed in more than 60 cities around the world. He is also the co-founder of the Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio (MESS),...