Mitch Fifield takes Arts from Brandis, also gets Communications portfolio

In what the Australian arts sector sees as a triumph of its lobbying clout, Senator George Brandis has lost the Arts portfolio to Victorian Senator Mitch Fifield but remains Attorney-General. 48-year-old Fifield will also take over Turnbull’s role as Minister of Communications.

After the more arts-friendly Malcolm Turnbull took over as Prime Minister last week, the arts sector began an email and mail campaign – not to mention a rally outside Turnbull’s Sydney office – to drop Brandis as Arts Minister and to abandon the contentious National Program for Excellence in the Arts.

With Turnbull’s Cabinet reshuffle a move to new ways of doing things (“a 21st century government … a nation that is agile, that is innovative that is creative”), the arts sector will keep up its campaign over arts funding, loss of jobs, and more help for small and medium sized arts organisations and independent artists.

Sydney-born Fifield, who has represented Victoria in the Senate since 2004, is known to be passionate about issues he takes on. He was an Ambassador for the not-for-profit school music organisation The Song Room, an Advisory Board Member for the Yachad Accelerated Learning Project for indigenous students and a founding director of the Sir Paul Hasluck Foundation, which serves as an intellectual and political forum on topics facing modern day Australia.

Fifield will be sworn into his new portfolio as today. It is not known what positive changes the former Assistant Social Services Minister will bring to the arts and music sectors.

But certainly when the Senate inquiry into arts funding cuts was held last week in Brisbane, the sector clearly reiterated its concerns.

Fifield will also assist Turnbull with a newly established 'digital government' portfolio. It includes the new Digital Transformation Office set up by Turnbull to overhaul the problems customers face with digital services. He was previously Parliamentary Secretary to one time Minister for Communications, Paul Fletcher, who is technology acute and was expected to take the Communications portfolio this time.

As Communications Minister, Fifield will oversee the rollout of the 'multi-technology mix' NBN (National Broadband Network). Music and movie copyright holders have long feared that one of the drawbacks of its implementation will be greater online piracy. The Government aims to get eight million homes and businesses on the NBN network by 2020.

ISPs are expected to push for the Government to roll back policies as disabling Australian access to overseas copyright-infringing websites. Under the new regime, ISPs will also push the Government to drop plans for a “three strikes” warning scheme. It has been considered a virtual failure in New Zealand where record companies and ISPs complain it is costing too much to chase up infringers and cases are no longer being sent to the Copyright Tribunal as a result.

The powerful free-to-air television lobby will push Senator Fifield to remove its $160 million licence fees so it is “able to innovate and compete in today's media environment.”