So, we artists are no longer ‘legitimate’.

13 Replies

And this is why I avoid talking about my country too much, besides making jokes about myself.

I hate what our leaders, people we chose to represent, to do us.

(Well, I didn’t choose these selfish, narcissistic scumbags, but yeah.)

AbStar921

I haven’t been this furious in a long time, and I’m loathe to use my blog to comment on politics. But not today. With the recent announcement that our fearless leader plans to scrap student loans to creative courses, this might be the angriest blog I will ever write and I am not even sorry.

By all means, if you don’t know about this outrage, click here and feel your blood pressure skyrocket. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Finished?

Now where the hell do I begin?

The Minister for Education and Training says that this is a “lifestyle choice”. Well guess what buddy? ALL CAREERS ARE A LIFESTYLE CHOICE, INCLUDING POLITICS. That’s right kids, follow your dreams, pursue your gifts and talents, but don’t even think about the creative side of life, that’s just a hobby.

The Minister goes on to say that “VET Student Loans will only support legitimate…

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13 thoughts on “So, we artists are no longer ‘legitimate’.”

  5. firelordeg

    im so glad i live in U.S,A. even with how f***ed up it has gotten over the last 20 years they at least know the value of education

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. Dhorn

      Wow, your pretty stupid. Step back and think about what you just said. I know it’s pointless to call you out over this, but really man, think before you type.
      In fact, just google it a bit.

      Anyways cutting student loans is pretty short sighted. Simply making it slightly harder to get them would weed out most of the stoner ‘artists’ that would never pay them off.

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  6. thadd

    Playing devils advocate here cause frankly I think everyone just kinda read the headline and not the whole article or know the whole backstory of the student loan situation in Australia. First off this is speaking purely from a utilitarian perspective its not mine just that mentality. So Australia makes it so that you can get a fair loan from the government and pay nothing out of pocket at the start. The debt only starts to be repaid after a person starts making over a certain amount per year I think its like 54k a year. So this means that its up to the individual to take the government up on the offer go to college and get a degree that can and will pay back the debt they owe.

    Now here’s the crutch of the issue many of the excluded majors are jobs that most likely you will end up flipping burgers doing. Degree in Florial design, Styling (Fashion, Image and Media), or Diploma of art in ceramics not materials science of ceramics a science version just ceramics in other words pottery class, but as a degree. Now some of them I think shouldn’t be on there like diploma of professional writing, journalism, product design, and Animation. Now remember the people of Australia/tax payers are investing in your college education and you need to choose a degree that will for sure be able to pay back that investment, and create more revenue for the government to tax and therefore support the rest of society. Is it messed up that they decreased funding for arts well yes of course it is. Is it wrong that they want to have more stem jobs in their country as they are the jobs that pay the best on average and often create the most amount of jobs.

    You also have to remember that many countries like the U.S, Australia, and England have people that now come to their country get a stem degree then leave after about 2-5 years in industry to help out their own countries/open their own businesses in their own countries. This means that your country may still be graduating like 20% of its yearly class as stem majors but only 3-5% are Australian. Its happening in the United States and causing huge issues in a lack of man power with no one stepping up to replace the previous generation instead they have more and more unemployed recently graduated college students who cant find jobs with unmarketable degrees.

    To give you an idea the arts make up just a bit more then one percent of Australia workforce and just make one percent of the total income. Of that group about 1/4 of them worked in supporting roles. Also on average in 2007-08 (most recent data was published in 2015) artist make if working full time at their art make 35,900 (which is less then the average by 7,400 as its 43,300) dollars which even as a full time artist they would make around 22,000 dollars from their art and part time 7,000 dollars so even the full time workers would need to make an additional 13,900 dollars to reach that and part time 28,900 dollars more to reach that point. Also to give you an idea a 18 year old working at minimum wage working 40 hour weeks in Australia makes about 3,147 dollars more then an artist does off his art jobs, while a 20 year old makes 63 dollars more then artist do on average just on minimum wage.

    TlDR Artist in Australia make no money even at minimum wage a 20 year old unskilled worker makes more then they do. If they don’t start paying back the goveremnt loan tell they make more then 54,000 an artist will never pay it back.

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. thadpole

      1 edit I read a chart wrong on the website for minimum wage its 17.70 an hour for all ages the other numbers where if considered non adults so its still right just that an adult makes more money. its instead 17.70*40(hours)*52(weeks in a year)=36,816 which is 900 dollars more then an artist makes yearly on average.

      sources: how much artists make yearly is on page 17 http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/workspace/uploads/files/arts-nation-final-27-feb-54f5f492882da.pdf

      Mininum wage
      http://www.mywage.org/australia/main/salary/minimum-wage

      Liked by 1 person

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    2. Rumanshi Ichigo Post author

      Oh no, for sure, I understand how some of these things could be taken as being useless. The thing that makes it such a touchy subject, is they add on things that are actual legitimate jobs. This irritates me. As I intend on doing a creative arts degree in university (Not TAFE), when does the decisions the government make start to have an effect on me?
      Will I have to make the required money to do my course? How will they justify that? My career path is a lifestyle choice? Oh dear! I should have wanted to be a scientist? I should have wanted to be an electrician? Or a mathematician? Nah, I want to be an author/translator.

      I understand the devils advocate part of this, I do, but I’m just worried that if the government chooses to go down this path, they’ll continue on causing cuts to legitimate career paths due to them being ‘lifestyle choices’.

      The fact that animation, professional writing and journalism made it onto these ‘lifestyle choices’ cuts disturbs me, and so it should. Thus I shared the post.

      But you know what, thank you very much. Your response is amazing and well thought out. 🙂

      Cheers,
      Rumanshi.

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      1. kainyusanagi

        Wouldn’t animation fall under “Diploma of Graphic Design” and its advanced version? As for things like sculpture, etc. isn’t that covered in the “Diploma of Visual Arts”? Obviously not solely focused on them, either one, but having a broader knowledge base would be more helpful, anyways, since you so rarely use only a specific tool and need moreso to understand the basic art theory that works across multiple mediums.

        As for journalism… Well, have you seen the current field, lately? It’s a total trainwreck. So-called “professional” journalists are doing far worse jobs than amateurs on a day-to-day basis, and those amateurs haven’t taken even a single day’s course in journalism, but adhere to journalistic ethics and report actual news better than the professionals do most of the time, since so many supposed “professionals” just resort to yellow journalism. Of course, not all do, but still, it makes sense on a technical level, as well as a financial one, since there’s not much money in it, either way.

        The same holds true for writing, frankly; amateur writers that go their own way have been leaving classically trained writers in the dust for years, now, outside the big name authors that are still writing from the previous generation.

        Further, those jobs simply aren’t *in demand*. A lot of courses in similarily out-of-demand courses were also cut, in other sectors. http://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/federal-budget/government-reveals-478-vet-courses-that-wont-be-eligible-for-student-loans/news-story/3cab635f03a11422698afdd86b81eadf

        Basically, the person you’re quoting is being needlessly incendiary about this, trying to make it out to be something just targetting the arts, when there’s so much else that is affected as well, with the intent of cutting the costs to the taxpayer, and giving a better hope of seeing those loans get repaid, as Thad brought up.

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