The Artful Dodger
Otto von Bismarck famously claimed that “Politics is the art of the possible," but sometimes it’s just about art.
In mid-February, Tony Burke, Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for the Arts, attended a citizenship blitz he asked his department to arrange, for migrants living in those western Sydney electorates considered to be vulnerable at the impending Federal election. It’s odd for a Minister to be so generous with his time. After all, citizenship ceremonies are generally hosted by local governments, with the Department of Home Affairs responsible for allocating recipients to the various ceremonies. But when your own electorate and those of your local mates are under threat, time can be found, hands can be shaken and photos taken with Australia’s newest citizens. Thousands of people were packed into mass ceremonies where they were greeted by Australian Electoral Commission staff handing out Enrol to Vote forms, their local Labor Member and in the instance of the once safe seat of Fowler, the Labor Candidate. But it was NOT, Burke assured us, an exercise in political interference to shore up votes.
Around the same time another series of events under the Minister’s portfolio was playing out; the selection and subsequent de-selection of the artistic team to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale in 2026, Khaled Sabsabi and Michael Dagostino. Burke has denied political interference in the Creative Australia Board’s decision to stand the pair down. Nevertheless, on the ABC’s 7.30 Report on February 17, 2025, he expressed how “shocked” he was when he saw the work, Thank you very much, 2006. After Question Time on February 13, Burke explains, “I rang Adrian to find out what had happened. At that point he had already determined that they were going to have a Board Meeting that night . . . I made clear to Adrian Collette, who I’ve known for more than a decade, I said whatever you decide I will support you and support Creative Australia. I was very clear on that.”
We will never know for sure whether interference was applied by the Minister to Collette or the Board of Creative Australia. We do know though, that the Board made its decision to cancel Sabsabi and Dagostino’s contract after the Minister’s call, and that Collette is still holding on to his job despite obvious governance issues and calls for his resignation from much of the art’s sector and the Greens.
We also know that form matters, and that politics is a dirty business.
Illustration by Coen Young, March 2025
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