Australasia's richest literary prize has been axed by the West Australian government.
Launched by the former Labor government led by Alan Carpenter in 2008 the AU$110,000 Australia-Asia has been axed after an external review of the award, in tandem with the WA Premier's Book Award.
Mr Day said AU$80,000 a year would be diverted to the Premier's Book Awards and while the government supported the original intent of the AALA, there was no capacity for it to continue. The Premier's Book Awards have been suspended for the last year whilst the review was underway.
"Given the economic pressures, the AALA does not represent the most prudent use of funds and is unsustainable," he said. Not unlike many of Quarry Western Australia's mining practices some might say.
The WA Premier's Book Awards would be broadened to allow all Australian writers to enter, widening the award's prestige and bringing them in line with other significant interstate awards, Mr Day said.
The top prize value for the premier's prize combined with the sub-category prize winnings would be AU$40,000.
Opposition culture and arts spokesman John Hyde said the move would hurt WA's image in Asia and discourage young people training in the arts.
The whole affair is rather bizarre given the net cost savings is a mere AU$30,000, that is without factoring in the cost of a Pythonesque external review process.
The concept of an Australia- Asia Literary award was sound in itself but possibly let down by poor execution with the long and shortlists flawed by the predominance of Australian writers and notable absence Asian writers. Still, it could have learned from it's early mistakes and have become something very worthwhile, a prize that would have brought both prestige to the State and the nation.
It is possible that Western Australia bureaucrats and government members suffer from a cultural deficit and were unable to broaden their horizons; perhaps they just realised that they were just out of their depth. More likely, it was just a wee bit of political spit(e) as the incoming government sought to kill initiatives of the previous incumbents.
Fortunately Perth hosts one the most wonderful annual Arts Festivals in the world including an excellent Writers' Festival. The idea to ramp up the WA Premier's Awards is also welcomed, a shame that a promising literary prize had to be killed off in the process.
The reading ability of Mr. Day and his taste in literature are unknown.
Hmm, I must admit that - although of course I welcome any Lit Prize for Oz - I always thought it was a bit pretentious of WA to claim this sort of prize for itself. The biggest and the best ought to be a federal initiative IMO, and the PM's prize was a step in the right direction.
ReplyDeleteI'd also like to see the premiers' prizes retain a category for their locals. What tends to happen is that someone like Winton will win every state premier's prize that's going, right across the country & the MF as well. If you look at last years outstanding MF shortlist, it seems rather unfair that just because 4-5 of our most talented writers just happened to publish all in the same year, most of them missed out on the recognition and the money they should have had. Some of the contenders could certainly have won a premier's prize for local writers had there been such a category. Also, while I don't want to see parochialism reward dubious writers, the awards have a role to play in bringing attention to lesser-known writers and encouraging them with some serious money.
I suppose when the PM & Co get together at COAG sorting out a coherent prize regime wouldn't be considered important enough for them to bother with *sigh*