Bad at Art and worse at Maths: NSW Liberal gov “loses" $1 bill?

By Ruth Skilbeck

In September the Barry O’Farrell Liberal Government of NSW announced cuts of $1.7 million to public education, specifically targeting Fine Art courses in TAFE technical and further education colleges, which if carried out will result in widespread job losses and closures of art school across the state in regional and rural areas. The economic rationale given for the cuts by the NSW government was supposedly that the NSW economy is in the red. However it has recently been revealed- after the cuts were announced- that mistakes were made in the accounting figures and that the NSW economy is really $1 billion in the black.

Rather surprisingly there have been no retractions announced, or proposals for how this extra $1 billion is going to be spent.

All of this would appear to add up to a picture of worrying inefficiency, non-transparency and bungling –or even worse- on the part of the incumbent NSW Liberal Government. For a start how could they manage to “lose” I billion in their sums- where was that 1 billion going to go to when it went missing- and at the same time the government announces that to “pay for this” Art and public education is being axed and artists and art teachers are to lose their jobs and students across the state?

These questions need to be asked publicly, loudly.

The government has to be accountable.