Budget 2025: What Does This Mean for Music and the Arts?
As the Albanese Government delivered its 2025–26 Federal Budget on March 25, Australia’s music and arts sectors confronted a familiar dilemma: welcome signals of progress wrapped in the stark reminder that the work is far from finished. While music received a moderate boost—mainly through the continued implementation of the Revive National Cultural Policy—many areas across the broader creative industries have been left wanting. Advocacy groups call on all political parties to treat this budget as a foundation rather than a finale and commit to long-term structural reforms that will secure Australia’s sustainable, inclusive cultural future.
A Music Sector Call to Arms: The Triple Lock Guarantee
Among the most urgent voices is APRA AMCOS, which responded to the budget with a proposed “Triple Lock Guarantee”—a three-part reform package designed to safeguard Australian music in an increasingly globalised and digitised industry. While the budget included an additional $22 million in funding for Creative Australia, alongside $8.6 million to extend the Revive Live program and $11 million for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Languages Partnership Program, APRA AMCOS sees this as the beginning.
Their Triple Lock Guarantee includes (1) increased and sustained investment in Music Australia, (2) the introduction of local content quotas for digital music platforms, and (3) the establishment of a live music tax rebate. APRA AMCOS CEO Dean Ormston described the proposal as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to “lock in the future of great Australian music for good,” stressing that the next Parliament must commit to completing the reforms initiated under Revive.
Visibility Crisis: Streaming Services and the Algorithmic Threat
The growing threat global streaming algorithms pose is central to the Triple Lock proposal. With over 70% of young Australians discovering new music via platforms like Spotify, the absence of local content quotas leaves Australian artists vulnerable to invisibility. In 2024, just 29 Australian songs made it into Triple J’s Hottest 100—the lowest figure since 1996—and only two Australian tracks broke into the ARIA Top 50 Singles Chart. Without enforceable local quotas, Ormston warned, “Australian music risks being drowned out by global algorithms.” APRA AMCOS urges lawmakers to update content rules to ensure local voices can still be discovered amid an increasingly homogenised global feed.
Rebuilding the Stage: The Live Music Sector in Crisis
Live music, the lifeblood of the Australian music industry, continues to struggle in the post-pandemic landscape. High insurance premiums, shifting festival markets, and audience hesitancy have made maintaining a viable touring circuit more challenging. The proposed live music tax rebate, likened to support already received by Australia’s screen industry, would provide much-needed relief to venues and artists alike. “A live music tax rebate would be a game-changer,” said Ormston. “It’s about keeping venues open, tours on the road, and jobs in the industry.”
Facing the Machines: Regulating AI in the Creative Economy
The conversation around AI looms large across all creative sectors. APRA AMCOS has added its voice to the growing chorus of industry bodies calling for urgent regulation and transparency around how generative AI models are trained. Artists are increasingly concerned that their work is being scraped and repurposed without consent. APRA AMCOS demands enforceable guidelines to ensure that creative content used to train AI is disclosed, fairly licensed, and protected under intellectual property law. Without intervention, Ormston warned, “Australian creators risk being exploited, their works devalued, and their voices erased.”
Advocacy on the Ground: Save Our Arts Targets the Margins
As the nation approaches a federal election, advocacy efforts are escalating. The Save Our Arts campaign holds forums in marginal electorates like Ryan (QLD), Macnamara and Wills (VIC), highlighting the crisis facing Australian creative sectors. The campaign is responding to troubling statistics—especially around local music representation—and calling for digital discoverability tools, production incentives, and an insurance fund for live venues. “The erosion of Australian voices in our music charts is alarming,” said QMusic CEO Kris Stewart. At the same time, Save Our Arts Director David Latham warned that “without decisive action, we risk our creative industries being buried by international tech giants and AI companies.”
Visual Arts Takes a Hit: Tax Relief Withdrawn
Outside of music, the visual arts community is grappling with discontinuing the instant asset write-off for artworks under $20,000, effective 30 June 2025. This tax relief has offered critical stimulus to artists and galleries for over a decade, encouraging business investment in Australian artworks. Its removal is widely seen as a regressive step at a time when the visual arts are already under-supported. As Michael Fox, a leading arts accountant and gallery director, noted, this decision “brings to an end one of [the sector’s] few truly stimulative measures.” No replacement policy has been proposed.
Sector Reaction: Disappointment and Missed Opportunities
While APRA AMCOS welcomed the budget as a positive step, other peak bodies expressed frustration. Theatre Network Australia (TNA) labelled it a missed opportunity to address urgent needs in the performing arts, particularly around fair pay, sustainable careers, and regional touring. The National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) echoed this sentiment, indicating a continued lack of infrastructure investment, income security, and sector-wide planning. “Artists remain among the most precariously employed workers in the country,” said NAVA Executive Director Penelope Benton, adding that the government had again overlooked the visual arts’ critical cultural and economic role.
First Nations Arts: Underserved Yet Again
BlakDance, the national body for First Nations contemporary dance, released one of the most sobering responses to the budget. While acknowledging continued funding for Revive Live and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Languages Policy Partnership, the organisation condemned the absence of dedicated support for Indigenous dance infrastructure and touring. “The budget lacks the decisive action needed to ensure that First Nations artists and communities are fully resourced,” the statement read. BlakDance called for the development of subsidised touring models and a First Nations-led commissioning platform, stating that current measures fail to match the scale and significance of Indigenous cultural contributions.
Cost-of-Living Relief: Welcome, But Insufficient
TNA and NAVA recognised that broader cost-of-living relief measures—such as modest tax cuts and student debt reductions—may ease pressures on low-income artists and arts workers. However, these measures are general and do little to address the structural precarity facing creatives. The underlying issues of underfunding, wage disparity, and insecure employment remain largely untouched by the budget. In a sector where many workers live below the poverty line, such partial measures are insufficient.
Where to From Here?
The 2025–26 Federal Budget offers a gesture of support—but not a strategy. While music has gained traction in national policy through the continued implementation of Revive and funding for Music Australia, the broader creative economy remains fragmented and vulnerable. APRA AMCOS’s Triple Lock Guarantee presents one possible roadmap forward: a way to stabilise, protect, and grow the Australian music industry. But it is only a start.
As we head into election season, the creative community is watching closely. The question is no longer whether governments acknowledge the value of the arts—it’s whether they are willing to make the structural, cross-sector commitments that a sustainable cultural future requires. Australia risks losing its creative output and the industries and communities that bring our stories to life without bold action.
References
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Staff Writer. (2025, March 25). The federal budget drops by $22 million for the Aussie music industry as APRA pushes for the Triple Lock Guarantee. Mixdown Magazine.
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