The new Arts Minister admits that the official guidelines remain unfinished and no assessors have been appointed.

During a Senate Estimates hearing yesterday it was revealed that the National Programme for Excellence in the Arts (NPEA) is drastically behind schedule. The largely unpopular new funding scheme was the brain-child of the former Minister for the Arts, George Brandis, who shocked the Australian arts sector when it was announced in the Federal Budget that over $104 million would be syphoned from the independently administered Australia Council for the Arts into the Government run NPEA.

A brief moment of optimism was offered to the disenfranchised Australian arts community when Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull’s first Cabinet reshuffle following the Liberal leadership spill saw the Arts portfolio withdrawn from Senator Brandis’ authority and reassigned to Senator Mitch Fifield. However, despite lobbying efforts by members of the #FreeTheArts movement, who have protested and petitioned the Government to abandon the NPEA since its announcement, Senator Fifield as stuck to his predecessor’s vision for the future of arts funding in Australia, saying that he will “endeavour to make the scheme work”.

However, during the hearing yesterday the new Arts Minister was forced to divulge how underprepared the...