Arts Minister Ros Bates touts government's commitment to nurturing arts in Queensland EMBATTLED Arts Minister Ros Bates has given an address to the arts industry in an attempt to bring the focus back to her portfolio and away from the controversy that has dogged her since the election. In a 30 minute address on Thursday morning, the minister made sweeping statements about the government's commitment to growing and nurturing the arts in Queensland and securing the state's position as a cultural destination but made no solid announcements about how she would make that happen. Her plans include to reduce red-tape to make the process of grants applications easier and to make it more simple for arts organisations to access government money. Ms Bates said she wanted to support the arts in Queensland to become more entrepreneurial and create stronger partnerships with the corporate sector to find new ways to access funding sources. To make this happen Ms Bates announced last year that an arts investment advisory board would be set up and this morning she announced the members. Leaders in business and the arts form the board and will be responsible for approving the government grants as well as creating partnerships between organisations and business. The members include Queensland art impresario Phillip Bacon, Queensland Art Gallery chair Sue Street, Hutchinson Builders" Scott Hutchinson, Industrea CEO Robin Levison, Lawyer and strategic adviser David Thomas and company director Dr Jane Wilson. The chair will be Mark Fenton from RACQ. After the address, the minister gave a Q&A session hosted by former arts minister Joan Sheldon. Ms Sheldon made it clear that the minister would not be taking questions from the floor, instead she answered submitted questions from people in the industry. The questions mostly covered rumours that funding to small to medium arts organisations would be slashed but Ms Bates said that funding was secure. Other questions covered how she planned to secure Queensland's position as a cultural capital, what plans there were to engage young people in rural and regional areas in the arts and what plans she had to grow artistic opportunities for Indigenous Australians. She drew on existing policy to answer those questions and didn't make any new policy announcements.