Cultural Gardeners - Australian Cultural Alliance for Climate Justice,
2025–26 Pre-Budget submission

The Hon. Dr Jim Charmers MP

Treasurer of Australia Department of the Treasury

Langton Crescent,

PARKES ACT 2600

31^st January 2025

Dear Minister,

The Cultural Gardeners - Australian Cultural Alliance for Climate Justice welcomes the opportunity to make recommendations for the 2025-26 Federal Budget.

The Cultural Gardeners is convened by CLIMARTE (Vic), Arts Front (Qld) and Pippa Bailey (NSW). We represent over 340 arts and cultural workers in all states and territories deeply concerned with taking action on the converging planetary climate and ecological crises. Humanity faces the combined catastrophes of ecosystem collapse, mass extinction of vital biodiversity and the rapid degradation of critical ecosystems. Australia is at the forefront of these crises.

We champion First Nations principles of Caring for Country and the Uluru Statement from the Heart. Our approach is uniquely Australian to respect and forefront the great diversity of First Nations people across Australia whose 60,000 years+ of continuous culture honours a unique relationship and responsibility for Country.

There are many inspiring cultural workers in Australia and around the world to align with. These allegiances will be stronger if we reconcile with the ongoing impacts of colonisation, follow First Nations people's lead, build trusting relationships and support action in our places, on this unceded land. Australia's identity reflects the unique biodiversity of this continent. Prioritising First Nations cultural knowledges deeply roots all Australians in this place, shaping our sense of pride and need to protect ecosystems here.

We align to a Just Transition, the framework developed by the trade union movement to encompass a range of social interventions needed to secure workers' rights and livelihoods when economies are transitioning to sustainable modes that mitigate climate change and protect biodiversity.

These principles are outlined in the Paris Agreement and are also embedded in the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG's). We support the ongoing campaign to add culture to the SDG's and have culture recognised at COP meetings.

Climate and climate impacts are proving to be the greatest threat to culture and the arts in Australia. Growing disasters have and continue to destroy studios, production and presentation capabilities across the nation. Our strategic recommendations present an opportunity to position our nation as a world leader in systems change. Our cultural sector needs direction and investment to reach net zero and help shape positive change.

With love and imagination for a better future,

Pippa Bailey (on behalf of the Cultural Gardeners)

Recommendations for the 2025-26 Federal Budget.

As Climate Change and environmental crisis continues to wreak havoc throughout Australia and the world, mass extinction and extreme weather events are transforming our lives and cultures locally, nationally and internationally. Australia remains at the epicentre of converging crises and while public awareness is growing, meaningful action is lagging, obstructed by bad actors putting profit before ecosystems on which all life depends.

The climate crisis is a cultural crisis, and ambitious transition planning requires imagination and new approaches. We can only find new approaches that shift attitudes and behaviours through experimentation, focused through strong principles translated into action, then assessing impact, revising our plans and trying again. This needs targeted investment.

The delivery of our National Cultural Policy REVIVE by Creative Australia and ongoing investment in the creative sector affirms the vital role arts and culture play in our society. This continues to offer opportunity for the potential of cross sector, led by cross government departmental collaboration. Resources are required to grow new interconnected stories and cross sector working through our systems. This also requires investment.

REVIVE does not mention the Climate and Ecological Emergency directly, a substantive problem for both the sector and wider society in shaping and sharing new narratives and action. An update to this policy is required to centre climate and ecological crisis and the posing threat to Australians way of life.

A welcome step was taken in 2023 when Creative Australia delivered a Creative Climate Leadership course in partnership with Julie’s Bicycle supported by the British Council, was the first official gathering of artists and cultural workers actively working in this territory and the announcement of a Creative Climate Action Delivery Service tender in 2024 was a welcome step forward.

As we identified in 2024, the profound impacts of climate change on our cultural heritage and creative livelihoods necessitates a united effort to envision and create a just and sustainable future. The Cultural Gardeners continue to build pathways and rehearse new futures, mobilising collaborative creative solutions for tackling the climate crisis. In 2024 Pippa Bailey (NSW based) travelled mostly by rail and road to Europe to reduce transport emissions by 42% to align with government targets for 2030. Working with the Creative Recovery Network (Qld) and Eva Grace Mullaley, a First Nations leader in WA, proposed a collaborative Creative Climate Action Alliance across the arts to disrupt the highly competitive and divisive forces that dominate both the sector and our society. Our ambitious vision of working together in new ways was well received with over 70 organisations and peak bodies taking up the invitation to engage.

Building the Alliance also flushed out some powerful individuals resisting this way of working, often with the most to lose in terms of personal power and influence. As a result of our activities, we have identified a deficit in current leadership as a critical challenge to addressing the climate crisis. This is not news but with a plethora of leadership courses focused on existing dominant cultural norms it is small wonder that those embedded in an extractive and destructive industrialised model of cultural output should resist change. Overall, we were heartened by the appetite for proposed change to competitive ‘business as usual’ and will hold the creative process of learning how together with flexibility and care.

Culture and the arts, whilst largely absent from discussions on strategic societal systemic change and policy development, are beginning to be recognised as both a driver of climate change and a key part of solutions-based action. There is opportunity to utilise creative skills to work interculturally and intergenerationally across many government departments and sectors to forefront innovation, focus on equity and justice, and holistic systems thinking in solutions-based practices. Investment and funding mobilise the creative sector to address pressing global challenges surrounding climate transition and adaptation and embracing the collective responsibility for climate action.

Stronger policy that weaves the accelerating environmental catastrophes into new ways of thinking and doing remains a challenge for government in leading change. By example, the important work the Department for Climate, Energy, Environment and Water (DCEEW) supports many innovative change projects without clear connection to arts and culture. We encourage government to establish a clear interdepartmental working group between DCEEW and the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and the Arts (DITRDA) to forge these links. This aligns with growing recognition that climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction strategies and activities must be integrated, and within the context of sustainable development and economic transition.

Creative practice is key to rehearsing new futures and social transition. In 2024 Cultural Gardeners leaders Pippa Bailey, Deborah Hart (CLIMARTE) and Kuku Yanji artist Henrietta Baird travelled to London to host a workshop symposium From Creative Practice to Climate Justice Action supported by the University of Greenwich, Creative Australia, Create NSW, Julie’s Bicycle and Culture Declares Emergency UK. As the name suggests, this weeklong event put embodied creative practices at the centre of Climate Justice conversations. Frustratingly, it is still easier to build international connections to produce an event of this significance in London than to gather resources to produce it in Australia. Strategic investment would support critical events of this nature.

Climate change is a complex issue and requires a systems approach. Rolling disasters are having profound impacts on culture, with destruction of heritage, disruption of artists' livelihoods and potential devastation to traditional ways of life. Culture also holds the key to solutions with innovative strategies for mitigation and adaptation. Funding this work, with increased need to work systemically, requires a distributed diverse range of funding opportunities for the arts and cultural workers. Complementing Creative Australia opportunities with other key investment initiatives could radically accelerate change and endorse a range of approaches.

From every perspective, responding to the Climate and Ecological Emergency requires society wide cultural change. We continue to see nefarious actors manipulating all media actively spreading misinformation to instil fear and division which is controlling the mainstream narrative, driven by the Fossil Fuel industry and vested interests. There are still too few leaders tackling crises head on with bold ideas for positive change. This leadership requires self-reflection, systems change and greater financial support.

Australia’s economy lacks complexity reflected in a cultural landscape that also lacks complexity and the ‘cost of living crisis’ has become the most recent excuse for not tackling Climate Change and global warming. Not only will lack of action cost billions but this crude polarisation of agendas continues to play into the hands of those deliberately obstructing transition to socially and ecologically sustainable systems. Addressing the Climate Crisis is not simply taking on another agenda item but centring a global existential crisis offers opportunity to redraft the framing of Australian culture, to centre First Nations knowledge’s focus on fairness and diversity that liberate both tangible and intangible values in order to enrich the culture as we embed Climate and social Justice as we transition.

Culture, through the Arts, has unparalleled capacity to enable climate justice. Through diversifying cultural structures to encompass the full range of voices, perspectives and tools to communicate urgency, we can mobilise action, and champion sustainable and justice-led ways of living together. This is a shift from an individualistic extractive and wasteful culture to a reflective and regenerative one.

Culture-based climate action promotes local solutions to universal problems. By filling gaps in current climate planning through strategies that are inclusive, rights-based, place-specific, and people-centred, we can create a framework that recognises the interdependence of all living things. Resources are required to support ongoing foundational work on the role of culture in official disaster management, climate policy and funding, artistic and heritage voices are on the forefront of work for triple transformation (green, digital, and social), pursuit of 1.5-degree pathways, and systems change. However, a persistent lack of formal policy recognition undermines the vital contribution of culture and ultimately the effectiveness of global climate action.

Valuing culture-led solutions can mitigate environmental challenges by providing an inclusive voice and outlet for pro-climate discussion, stimulating behaviour change for climate adaptation, using traditional knowledge to design practical solutions.

As our work develops, the Cultural Gardeners are advocating for culture-based climate action and systems change; developing interventions, solutions, and multilateral action demonstrating the benefits of integrating culture into transition; which provides platforms for all nations and communities, regardless of background or location, to share knowledge, experience, and best practices.

We reiterate the following initiatives to concretely manifest these agendas:

1. First Peoples first - Enable and follow First Nations leadership. Since the failed referendum for the Voice to Parliament we have witnessed is a rollback of respectful practice that privileges First Nations people. There is an urgent need to start developing Creative Climate Action led by First Nations people and to provide training for non-indigenous people that develop workforce capacity that activates of First Nations culture as climate mitigation and Care for Country.

     Acknowledgement of First Peoples wisdom and cultural protocols enriches self- determination and local community-led 
     practices. It is foundational for Australia and will enable long term systemic change.

Enabling actions:

• Prioritising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultural Protocols and work within climate response planning and activation. Ideally in the proposed collaboration between DCEEW and DITRDA this approach would demonstrate the value of First Peoples cultural heritage and the need for their acknowledgement, leadership, and protection.
• Increase financial support to First Nations led recovery and mitigation programs, particularly to loss of sites of cultural significance from disasters, and to prioritise protection.
• Enable more cultural awareness training that is accessible to all, placing First Nations tangible and intangible cultural values and the symbiotic relationship with Country at the heart of Australian cultural values.

2. Ministerial engagement and financial commitment for participation in the Group of Friends for Culture-Based Climate        Action. Fostering representation to build political momentum for the recognition of culture as a uniquely powerful force in
    international climate change policy.

     COP28 (Dubai) delivered the most significant outcome for culture in COP history, an unprecedented political commitment to
     engaging with cultural heritage, the arts, and creative industries as a lead in climate adaptation. The first ever multilateral     
     High-Level Ministerial Dialogue on Culture-based Climate Action, and strong references to cultural heritage and traditional
     knowledge in the newly adopted Global Goal on Adaptation herald a new era of collaboration on culture and climate.

     The establishment of the Group of Friends of Culture-Based Climate Action at the UNFCCC during COP28 opened wider
     the doors to a new era of climate action that embraces the power of culture and ancestral wisdom to help people imagine     
     and realise Just and low-carbon climate resilient futures. 

     COP 29 (Azerbaijan) built on this work. However, despite valid criticism of contradictory agendas at the event and negotiations     excluding the request for the UNFCCC Subsidiary Bodies to hold workshops on culture and heritage issues in 2025, there are
     opportunities for Australia to play a proactive role in securing better outcomes.

Enabling actions:

• Update the REVIVE cultural policy to incorporate Climate and Ecological Emergency to honour the first pillar of First Nations first and send a clear domestic and international message.
• Renew the Paris Agreement commitment of 42excluding carbon credits, and factoring culture in to help lead change towards transiton.
• Advocate for a senior government Minister, ideally a First Nations Minister, join the Group of Friends of Culture-Based Climate Action as Australia continues to campaign to host COP31.

3. Invest in the development of a Cultural Climate Strategy and new funding opportunities.

This would launch a process to:

• Understand how culture – heritage, arts and creative work – is already supporting climate actions and solutions
• Support cultural voices to influence audiences and consumers to understand the need for a whole of community approach to emissions reduction and climate adaptation
• Unite the cultural sector to scale up action on the most existential threat of our time through collaborative transition focused efforts
• Influence key policy development and discussions on climate adaptation, decarbonising, supporting cultural knowledge keepers, safeguarding heritage and culture and creative innovation

These collaborations will highlight the role of culture and the arts in addressing climate crisis and integrate sustainability goals (SDG’s) into decision-making processes. Imagine strategies creating collective spaces for dialogue and action so that societal change can radiate from our museums, cultural centres, schools, libraries and empower communities. Given the urgency of the climate crisis, the need for culture as a vital resource has never been greater.

4. Reset an emphasis on cultural product to focus on cultural practice as a clear way to address the ‘how’ of imagining and        enacting culture change, not only in the arts, but in organisational cultures and across sectors grappling with broken systems
    and the associated mental health and well-being crises.

5. All of the above could be incorporated into the development of a 10-year plan (2026-2035) to support the structural          and systems change required for a net-zero future, that prioritises the arts and cultural sector. This should be fully           funded to maximise impact implementation, monitoring and evaluation of climate response strategies with clear resource management, emissions reduction targets and disaster preparedness embedded in strategic planning.

Therefore, we also recommend that the Government allocate resources to;

• Create interdepartmental culture-focused initiatives to test new ideas and ways of working that address systemic inequities and wicked problems with strong principle-led change agendas.
• Build the capacity for creative actors to play a role in disaster preparedness, climate adaptation.
• Develop strategies and criteria to maintain climate mitigation in our cultural institutions with robust and values-based frameworks. This would provide and sustain effective, efficient, responsive, appropriate cultural infrastructure which leads capacity for climate literacy in a healthy ecology of artistic, creative and cultural activities
• Invest in development of simple regulations and accreditation systems to achieve net zero and become carbon positive
• Reimagine cultural tourism for a net zero future
• Scale-up mitigation activities and responses, in accordance with national laws and regulations, including the development and implementation of place-based, and people-centred strategies, including a focus on the cultural dimensions of reducing waste and shifting to closed loop production and consumption approaches.
• Promote sustainable and resilient communities by focusing on efforts to support vulnerable people to value diverse knowledge systems and cultural expressions. To redress systemic inequities the specific needs of women, children and youth, Indigenous Peoples, traditional knowledge holders, local communities and persons with disabilities, and LBGTIQ+ and addressing systemic disadvantage across our communities
• Support all creative workers whose livelihoods are threatened by climate change or who would benefit from response measures in the face of green transformation, to maintain culture expression, heritage transmission, and inclusive, decent work, through context-appropriate approaches.
• Cost, trial and implement a Universal Basic Income for artists that provides a sustained movement of cultural practitioners to rehearse new futures and ‘walk the talk’ of change, leading the economic transition to net zero

    6. Collaboration at every level
     We urge the government to take a bipartisan approach, stop demonising Climate activists, and enable the many dedicated
     people who have been working in this territory for years to accelerate action. We ask for investment to support integrated
     planning focused on arts, ecology and responsibility for climate sustainability, that re-shapes production processes and 
   reduces our carbon footprint to exceed the Paris Agreement targets.

     The urgency of the climate emergency is a clarion call to harness culture’s immense potential as a transformative tool. We
    respect this is new learning and encourage your insights, collaboration and support to empower those on the front line of
    climate disaster.

    The Cultural Gardeners and the Creative Climate Action Alliance are still relatively new initiatives. At this early and adaptive    
    stage of development we welcome support to aggregate our impact. Only by working together, can we meaningfully catalyse          change, reimagine our world and pioneer a sustainable future that embodies the values of creativity, resilience, equity and     
    collective responsibility. 

    We look forward to working with you to mobilising Australia’s artistic, creative and cultural professionals to ensure that the 
    sector is climate responsive, networked and supported.