Senator ELLISON (Western Australia —Minister for Justice and Customs) [3:34 PM] —At the request of the Minister for the Arts and Sport, Senator Kemp, I move:

   That the following matter be referred to the Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by the first sitting day in 2007:

Australia’s Indigenous visual arts and craft sector, with particular reference to:

(a)   the current size and scale of Australia’s Indigenous visual arts and craft sector;

(b)   the economic, social and cultural benefits of the sector;

(c)   the overall financial, cultural and artistic sustainability of the sector;

(d)   the current and likely future priority infrastructure needs of the sector;

(e)   opportunities for strategies and mechanisms that the sector could adopt to improve its practices, capacity and sustainability, including to deal with unscrupulous or unethical conduct;

(f)   opportunities for existing government support programs for Indigenous visual arts and crafts to be more effectively targeted to improve the sector’s capacity and future sustainability; and

(g)   future opportunities for further growth of Australia’s Indigenous visual arts and craft sector, including through further developing international markets.

Question agreed to.