24/05/2026
Great news for the arts in the ACT
Today's budget announcement outlined a major funding package for our arts and creative industries.
This delivers on commitments we set out before the 2024 election - and they're the next steps in the agenda we began in 2021, when we released the Statement of Ambition for Canberra to be Australia's arts capital.
The headline figure is an additional $8.6 million over four years to lift funding for arts organisations and centres by 25% from January 2027, taking the Arts Organisation Investment Program from $9 million a year to roughly $11.25 million. ACT Labor committed to this in October 2024, and it's now being delivered, giving organisations the multi-year certainty they need to plan, employ and grow.
Alongside this:
🎭 $19.8 million to ready the Cultural Facilities Corporation to operate Canberra's new 2,000-seat Lyric Theatre
🏗️ $13 million in capital upgrades to keep our existing venues safe, accessible and high-performing
🎮 🎥 $1.25 million continuing the CBR Screen and Digital Games Fund, delivering on our "Put Canberra on the Big Screen" commitment
💃 Continued support for Kulture Break to keep its dance program in ACT public schools
This is part of a deliberate, sustained delivery against a clear plan for a sector that we value and benefit from every single day.
The 2025-26 Budget injected more than $7 million into arts and culture, including an increase in arts project funding for local artists, taking available funding to more than $1.3 million per year.
And of this also matters for our UNESCO City of Design bid. Canberra was conceived as a designed city. Every street, sightline and park was placed with intent. Of course, design and creativity have been a feature of our region for thousands of years before that, with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander design being a major part of our identity. UNESCO Creative City status would put us on the same international stage as Berlin, Helsinki and Saint-Étienne. It's a credential that opens doors to global design networks, attracts creative industries and design tourism, and gives Canberra's makers and designers an international platform.
The 2025-26 Budget backed this directly, funding the expansion of the Craft + Design Canberra Festival, creating a new Artist Engagement Fund, and introducing design excellence awards.
Today's announcement continues to support the infrastructure spine and sustained funding base any serious creative capital needs.
Canberra already has the highest cultural attendance and creative participation rates in the country, and one of the largest proportions of creative workers per capita. This is a creative economy worth backing for the jobs, the businesses, the audiences - and for the kind of city it makes us.
