INVERELL Shire council general manager Paul Henry said council had not received notification about a petition launched by regional arts advisory body Arts North West.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
“There’s been no approach,” Mr Henry said.
The current petition invites residents of the Inverell local government area to register their support for council to re-subscribe to Arts North West.
The petition is accessible on change.org.
Mr Henry said he had only learned of it after he read the article about the petition in last Friday's edition of The Inverell Times.
He said Inverell Cultural Group secretary Chris Newbigen had written to request a meeting with himself, Arts North West board president Rob Hurcum and Inverell mayor Paul Harmon.
“That’s the only recent contact, other than media reports that they’ve got a new chief executive officer,” Mr Henry said.
Council voted not to re-subscribe to Arts North West’s services after the 2012-13 financial year.
Mr Henry said at that time, council was conscious of fiscal discipline and a preference to invest in local cultural activities.
He said a lack of evidence of Arts North West’s impact within Inverell drove council’s decision.
“When council considered it, it also had a commentary from Arts North West about the range of activities that had been undertaken within the region in the past 12 months, and there was very little, Inverell specific activities,” Mr Henry said.
Mr Henry was unable to comment on whether the deficit had to do with Inverell shire’s need, lack of awareness, or Arts North West’s engagement.
“That obviously was a matter that did affect the council mindset,” he said.
He said should the matter come back on the table, council would likely request assurance they would have some return for the investment.
“It’s not for me to tell them what they should do to ensure their relevancy to Inverell.”
Mr Henry assumed Arts North West had circulated the petition to get council to reconsider renewing its membership.
“It’ll be reconsidered. What weight the individual councillors give to the petition, what weight they give to balancing competing priorities, who knows?” he said.
“That’s a decision for each individual councillor.”
Arts North West executive and regional arts development officer Caroline Downer said in a statement that the organisation had not sent the petition to council because they first hoped to gauge community support before approaching council.
“ANW (Arts North West) is looking forward to discussing this issue with council,” she stated.
“We plan to meet to show the results of the petition and discuss the considerable support that ANW can provide to Inverell Shire as part of the broader regional arts network.”
