ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the history of cultural development and arts management in Australia since British settlement. The main themes are: Arts management is concerned with monitoring and safeguarding the efficient and sound delivery of artistic product from artist to audience. The shift in emphasis in the Australia Council to a community arts policy has been seen by some as an important shift in power from a leading cultural group to a more diverse range of workers in unions, institutions, and ethnic and regional groups. Expressions of national identity in these countries will help reassert their differences to outsiders as well as to the people themselves. It is the responsibility of arts managers to keep informed about the dialogue of national identity and to prevent the distortion of images which can arise when market forces are unqualified by artistic integrity.
