'Slap in the face': Who got vital funding ahead of Wagga group

While Booranga had their appeal for $60,000 knocked back after 30 years of ongoing funding, four city-based writing centres received over $460,000 between them.

Sydney-based organisations International Performing Writers Centre and NSW Writers Centre received $54,000 and $200,000 respectively, Create NSW has confirmed.

Another $110,000 was awarded to Wollongong-based South Coast Writers Centre, and the Hunter Writers Centre in Newcastle received $100,000.

The steel city received another $143,000 from the grant pool, with further funding awarded to Newcastle Writers Festival for their 2024 event.

In addition to being city-based, these centres are all coastal, leaving inland NSW without any publicly-funded writing centres.

Booranga Writers Centre president David Gilbey said he'd observed Create NSW withdrawing from the regions over a number of years in terms of both communication and financial support.

"It's more than unfair - it's a slap in the face for regions," Mr Gilbey said.

Booranga uses the majority of its funding to pay two part-time staff to run the centre's activities.

With one of their key duties being preparing applications for grant, the funding loss is a double blow as it also diminishes the organisation's ability to apply for future funding.

Mr Gilbey said in the past they have been able to obtain other small grants for specific works or events from organisations like Riverina Water, but it would be almost impossible to obtain these without paid staff to coordinate the collaborations.

He said the idea they can simply seek funding elsewhere, or apply for second round funding misunderstands the way writing centres and the grants application process work.

"To suggest there might be other ways of getting the funding is a little bit disdainful," Mr Gilbey said.

"Who's going to do the work to find and process the grant applications? That will fall back on volunteers, and it's very difficult, very time consuming.

"The packages of funding available from other organisations are in the order of $4000 to $5000. That's not enough to run an organisation. It's not enough to pay a salary. It's not an investment in jobs."

The ongoing withdrawal of funding from regional arts projects is contrary to the stated arts policy of the federal government.

In January 2023, federal arts minister Tony Burke announced Revive - a new national arts policy - that included in a greater focus on arts in the regions in its changes to existing funding arrangements.

Create NSW is under the guidance of state arts minister John Graham, who has publicly endorsed Revive as part of his new cultural policy announced in December 2023.

Eastern Riverina Arts director Tim Kurlyowicz said he thought newness and novelty were bigger factors in the decision than regionality.

Mr Kurlyowicz said while arts funding remained a challenge for the regions, he saw reasons to be optimistic as well.

"The funding system often has a bias towards novelty, the big exciting new thing," he said.

"I think when you have an organisation like Booranga, which has become an institution in our region by doing the same thing every year - by being a dependable publication every year, having those 12 writers workshops, having the residency program - that can be seen as just ho-hum. It's not sexy and new.

"What we are seeing is more investment in the arts from other portfolios. Just about every hospital redevelopment in regional NSW has seen some pretty significant investment in public art."