Crean launches national cultural policy The federal government will boost spending on the Australia Council by $75.3 million over four years under a new national cultural policy. Arts Minister Simon Crean says Labor will also introduce to parliament next week laws to restructure the peak national arts body. Mr Crean has told the National Press Club the new cultural policy, called Creative Australia, will create jobs and encourage a new generation of artists and creative industry businesses. The government will set aside a total of $235 million over four years to implement the policy. I've long held a passion for the arts. It's not just the enjoyment they bring, I see the artist as central to us a nation and to securing its future," Mr Crean said in Canberra on Wednesday. Mr Crean says the Australia Council will get a "clear mandate" to support and promote vibrant and distinctively Australian creative arts. It will also shift its focus to independent, peer-assessed grants. The arts body, Creative Partnerships Australia, will receive $8.6 million in additional funding to build partnerships between artists, business and private donors. An extra $20.8 million will go to arts training over four years and $20 million will be spent on attracting international film production. The government has already provided incentives to bring production of The Wolverine to Australia and is negotiating with Disney to secure 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Captain Nemo. Video game design, indigenous arts and digital production also form part of the policy. Mr Crean says $40 million will come from existing arts programs and $195 million will be "new money" drawn from spending cuts in other government departments. He says the specific sources of funding will be revealed in the May budget. Mr Crean said he was in talks with Treasury on how to encourage more wealthy Australians to donate to arts and cultural activities through tax incentives. He also wanted to encourage the use of "crowd funding," through which artists offer rewards to small donors in order to raise money for projects. Asked what would happen to the arts under an Abbott coalition government, he said he hoped that the sector had long-term bipartisan support. But the new cultural policy also needed the support of the media. "If you want the polity of this country to accept this and embed it and drive bipartisanship, you've got to back it," Mr Crean told journalists. Cost is an issue, but you've got to understand what it buys: it helps bind our civilisation, it helps strengthen our culture and it helps define us and isn't that what we should be doing together.