The National Gallery of Australia's director is confident a plan to share more of its collection with galleries around the country will not leave visitors in Canberra missing out on key works or artists.
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Nick Mitzevich has welcomed an announcement of $11.8 million to trial the program to share works on long-term loans with regional galleries, part of a cultural policy that included an extra $286 million for arts funding over four years.
"With 155,000 works of art in the national collection, no one's going to miss anything in Canberra, because the collection is immense," Mr Mitzevich said.
Just 1 per cent of the national collection is on display in Canberra, he said.
The gallery director also said he was heartened the policy acknowledged the budget needs of the national cultural institutions and there would be a budget fix.
"Our budgets are structurally unsustainable and we've worked very hard at trying to make them sustainable, but there's been so many factors over the last two decades that have contributed to that," he said.
"So we're heartened that ... the government is taking it seriously and the arts policy acknowledges that there will be a resolution to it in the May budget."
But Mr Mitzevich warned the artwork loans program would not be a solution to limited storage for the gallery's collection.
"What it means is this, that things from the national collection can be seen and used and experienced. It's not a short-term solution for storage at all," he said.
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Mr Mitzevich said regional galleries would make applications to the National Gallery, which would be assessed before the works begin heading on loan in the second half of the year.
The national cultural policy - dubbed Revive - was launched by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Melbourne on Monday.
The 113-page policy includes commitments to establish new bodies to support Indigenous artists, musicians and writers; a consultation process on Australian content quotas for streaming platforms; and the establishment of a national poet laureate position.
ACT Arts Minister Tara Cheyne welcomed the policy, saying there was significant crossover with the territory's own arts policy, and sharing the National Gallery's collection would drive more people to visit to Canberra.
"Really, there's no surprises in this cultural policy - and I think that's a good thing, because it means this has been an iterative discussion and something I felt confident we'd be heard on, and we have been heard," Ms Cheyne said.
Ms Cheyne said a commitment to more transparent funding decisions across states and territories would be good for the ACT, which provided access to arts and culture for an audience larger than its population.
"That was something ... that we greatly stressed in our submission that we wanted to see more equitable national funding and that smaller jurisdictions and major regional centres, like us here in Canberra, might have a small population, but population alone shouldn't be how funding is assessed and distributed," she said.
The federal opposition's arts spokesman, Paul Fletcher, said the policy was underwhelming and decried a lack of additional funding for the national collecting institutions.
"The policy also establishes several new bureaucratic organisations - and of course every dollar in salaries for more government officials, is a dollar that does not directly fund arts activity," Mr Fletcher said.
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Jasper Lindell
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
