Council backs writers festival, calls out funding cuts

The City of Melbourne will write to the Premier urging funding be reinstated to Writers Victoria as the council prepares to host celebrations for the 40th annual Melbourne Writers Festival and promote itself as a UNESCO City of Literature

The City of Melbourne has resolved to petition the state government over the cutting of funding to several high-profile writing organisations in the latest round of Creative Victoria grants.

Writers Victoria had its $150,000-a-year funding cut to zero in December last year, and while emergency funding has been extended by the state government until the middle of 2026, the future of the organisation, which supports the development of Victorian writers, reportedly looks uncertain.

Also singled out in the council’s motion was literary youth arts organisation Express Media, whose operational security was reduced, with a reduction of funding from four years to two, and not-for-profit Australian Poetry, which lost operational funding.

The cuts were part of a Creative Victoria funding round that was described as “a bloodbath” across the arts.

The City of Melbourne Future Melbourne Committee resolution to write to the government came as part of a motion on support for the Melbourne Writers Festival, which turns 40 this year.

Given that future Melbourne writers festivals will suffer without Writers Victoria, Australian Poetry and Express Media, especially their support for early- and mid-career writers, editors and poets, [the Future Melbourne Committee] asks the CEO to write to the Victorian Premier and Minister for Creative Industries urging the restoration of multi-year state funding to these organisations, which, if withdrawn, would make Victoria the only mainland state in Australia without a state-funded peak body supporting writers, the motion said in part.

It also noted the financial pressures Australia’s literary and festival sectors were under, affirmed the council’s support for Melbourne’s “literary ecosystem” and identified the festival’s 40th anniversary as a “timely opportunity” for Melbourne in light of the recent cancellation of Adelaide Writers’ Week.

The main purpose of the motion, moved by the council’s Creative and Arts portfolio lead, Cr Philip Le Liu, was to approve the use of Melbourne Town Hall, at an estimated cost of $20,000, for a special Melbourne Writers Festival 40th anniversary celebration.

Lord Mayor Nick Reece enthusiastically seconded it, noting that together with in-kind promotional support and partnership funding, the city would be providing well over $100,000 worth of support for this year’s festival.

Cr Mark Scott, portfolio head for tourism and events and deputy for creative and arts, expanded on the significance of Melbourne’s status as a UNESCO City of Literature, which he claimed reflected “a living breathing literary ecosystem that sustains writers, readers, festivals and fundamentally, ideas”.

Organisations such as those cited in the motion “build the pipeline of talent that fuels [Melbourne’s] literary culture,” he said.

Weakening them and the writing community risked weakening “the festival sector, our creative economy and Melbourne’s global reputation as a city of ideas,” which would have flow-on economic impacts.

The Melbourne Writers Festival, which runs from May 7 to 10, was a successful recipient of a multi-year arts grant from the City of Melbourne and is receiving $60,000 a year over three years, from 2025-27. •

Correction: This story originally said that Express Media had "lost government support". It has been updated to reflect the fact that Express Media did receive two-year (rather than four-year) Creative Victoria funding in the latest round.