The return of the Albanese Government marks the first time in Australian history that an arts and cultural policy has survived into a next term.

Gough Whitlam, renowned for the central role of the arts in his ambitious program, did not enact a written policy; Paul Keating’s Creative Nation was implemented in 1994, the final term of the Hawke-Keating government, and was immediately dumped by John Howard; Simon Crean’s Creative Australia was implemented in 2013, the final year of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government, only to be dumped by Tony Abbott.

Never before have we seen a documented cultural policy survive a change in government, or even a second parliamentary term; Tony Burke’s Revive is the first.

So what will this mean for artists and audiences – and for the culture wars that constitute its only real opposition?

Labor’s thumping victory indicates that Australians’ response to culture wars is not just disinterest but disgust.

Peter Dutton’s gamble was that culture wars would detach us from policy debates, making it easier for disengaged voters to embrace candidates with divisive or hateful messages. Attempts to politicise or demonise Welcomes to Country, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags, school curricula, renewable energy, working from home, MAGA-lite ‘government efficiency’ and ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’, and the ‘hate media’, all came at the expense of credible policy messaging.

That ugly gamble did not pay off. Dutton’s strategy helped hand Labor a landslide, and cost him his own seat.

What Australia has instead is a cultural policy that centres First Nations cultural sovereignty, respects artists’ labour, champions Australian stories, strengthens creative workplaces and rewards audiences in regional and urban places.

What can we look forward to in the national cultural policy’s second term?

Writing Australia, legislated in 2024 as a core element of Revive, will established on 1 July. Writers, journals and small publishers expect significant increases in funding opportunities in ways that redress the huge investment disparities with other artforms.

This dedicated focus redresses the long-term decline of public investment in writers, literature and publishing. It follows a string of past failures in this area including the 2015 failed attempt to create a Book Council of Australia by bringing together a group of publishing industry organisations, and the 2020 failed attempt to form a national body (also named Writing Australia) by bringing together the state-based writers’ centres. The $6m that arts minister George Brandis took from the then Australia Council to create the Book Council was never returned, compounding the disproportionate outcomes for literature in Australia Council funding, sinking to just 2.4% in 2021.

Revive’s Writing Australia has yet to take shape. Creative Australia describes its focus as supporting writers and illustrators, investing in a network of key organisations, developing national industry initiatives and international programs, and establishing ‘a National Poet Laureate to promote poetry and mentor up-and-coming poets’.

This last component is particularly exciting – and, potentially, the most controversial. Who best to advocate for Australia’s poets, and how will the decision be made?

Our first poet laureate was a political appointment made over a century ago in New South Wales – it was the colony’s very first cultural grant, awarded in the form of livestock: two cows in 1818 for Michael Massey Robinson, a convict whose death sentence had been commuted. Ironically, Robinson had initially been sentenced for his ‘poetical quips, one of which was the cause of his transportation to Australia’. It’s quite possible that Robinson is the only poet in any jurisdiction whose writing took him from the gallows to poet laureate. His appointment, however, did not survive a change in governor.

From Revive’s earliest consultation stages, Burke made it clear that he would legislate its key components to help protect it from political attack. This risk was no chimera; as well as never seeing a policy survive a change in government, we’ve also seen a government cheerfully launch and then perilously undermine the Australia Council’s strategic plan A Culturally Ambitious Nation. Just months after launching that ambitious plan at the Sydney Opera House with foreign minister Julie Bishop in 2014, Brandis removed $123.3m or 34.8% of the Australia Council’s discretionary budget. The centrepiece of that strategic plan had been initiatives towards long-term security for the small-to-medium arts sector. Those initiatives were abandoned, as was the entire strategic plan.

Whether legislated by parliament like Revive, or formally implemented by an agency of government like A Culturally Ambitious Nation, arts policy remains vulnerable to political attack. Legislated or no, all a politician need do is gut the budget. Burke was well aware of this risk heading into an election: as he told the ABC’s Daniel Browning, ‘It’s legislated: [the next government] must implement Writing Australia, but a change of government could take all its money away. And we know what happened in 2013: that’s what George Brandis did. He took half the money away.’

Just weeks later, in the final days of the election campaign, we saw that risk borne out. The Coalition’s last-minute policy costings revealed a 11% cut in the entire Creative Australia budget in favour of just one project – a suburban precinct of ‘arts and culture’ as well as ‘food and shopping’ – as well as money for ‘supporting broadcasting’ without specifying how. A clumsy culture war tactic played too late in the campaign even to be noticed.

Burke is right: legislating isn’t enough. Cultural policy needs to embed itself well across multiple portfolios and secure multiple champions on the front bench.

This will require a considerable upsurge in shaming culture warriors out of business, rather than taking their bait. We need to see journalists stop playing along for clicks and giggles, and start addressing culture war’s political intent explicitly.

Why, for example, did we see so many journalists questioning the value and purpose of Welcomes to Country, as opposed to asking why the leader of the opposition was attempting to legitimate the actions of a convicted neo-Nazi into the national conversation? Every interview question is a political and cultural choice; there is no neutral position. Journalists need to examine their own culture war co-option carefully.

We also need to see the arts sector make the very most of the opportunities afforded by the Revive policy – and that’s going to be challenging. Following the decision to terminate Khaled Sabsabi and Michael Dagostino’s Venice Biennale contract, Creative Australia faces a legitimacy crisis with its leadership under fire by a significant voices across the arts sector as well as its own staff.

Australia’s first poet laureate will have the weight of expectation on their shoulders as they undertake a public role that’s neither political nor partisan. They will need our support and protection: given the ugliness of the culture wars, we can expect to see the role politicised and publicly attacked – unless the Coalition and the tabloids rapidly start learning the lessons of this year’s election campaign.

Australians are disgusted by culture wars. Far from disengaging us into the embrace of the far right, they’ve galvanised our resolve for meaningful, respectful politics.

Poets search our emotions and guide our reflections. Writers deepen our spirits and ignite our thinking. Artists build our courage in ways we could never have imagined, astounding us with songs and films and exhibitions and games and books that change our lives for the better.

As our first cultural policy ever to survive a change in government evolves, let’s prepare to be invigorated by the finest work Australia’s artists have to offer. That’s the inspiration we all crave – and no culture war can diminish it.