I have been alerted to The Australian’s appalling report that arts organisations and institutions across the country are offering subsidised ticketing based on the race of their patrons.

If you are an Aboriginal Australian who lives conveniently within an accessible distance of Bennelong Point, you’ve hit the jackpot!

If you pop online, you can take advantage of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s Mob Tickets: discounted ticketing ‘for First Nations People to selected shows at the Opera House. Mob Tix are available to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of Australia as well as Māori, Pasifika and First Nations people from other countries’.

Novel, right? Now you might be able to enjoy Birds of Tokyo for just $13, while those adult whites have to cough up between $49 and $129 (if it is one of the Mob Tix discounted events). Or, if you’re not so much into rock-classical fusion, feed your First Nations fantasies with the sensuous vibrato of international superstar Anne-Sophie Mutter as she performs as a soloist in a concert of John Williams’ greatest Hollywood hits. For that, you’re going to need to fork out just that little bit extra – but don’t worry, while you’re paying $15 to hear one of the greatest violinists in the world, the racist colonisers who brought you Western Art Music in the first place are being charged, for the same premium stall seating, a lovely $145.

But it doesn’t end there, because the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (SSO) is not alone in this egregious pricing scheme. Subject to availability and buried within its Terms and Conditions, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) also offers what it calls Mob Tix: discounted ticketing that isn’t just available to Aboriginal Australians but to ‘Māori, Pasifika and First Nations people from other countries as well’.

This comes from an orchestra that was so financially embattled in 2020 that it stood down its musicians to avoid bankruptcy. The Australian Ballet gets in on the action, too, with the same scheme. The Australian even reports that the Sydney Opera House is offering Aboriginal Australians free tickets to some of its productions, under the guise of ‘inclusion and participation in the arts’.

It’s probably obvious that I am genuinely enraged by this. In all my days of thinking about art, being an artist and working in Australia’s arts industry, I can honest-to-God confess I never conceived that Apartheid would enter our concert halls.

This is so, so wrong.

Firstly, the catty comment about the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra – who I was fortunate enough to work with in 2021 – should be extrapolated. Arts institutions in this country are not run well. They are not run well in the sense that they do not prioritise art. They, regrettably, prioritise commerce and, foolishly, follow social trends. This is because they are not financially viable operations. The reason they are not financially viable operations is because there exists no mass demand for contemporary art in Australia. The reason for this is because arts education has failed Australia’s children since the 1990s.

Without the necessary financial security, arts institutions are permanently affixed to government’s barren breast, dependently sucking and sucking in the hope that milk will one day flow. In any meaningful sense, it never has and never will. Since Whitlam, the Commonwealth has had no interest beyond manipulating the arts to facilitate its agendas, and this is manifestly clear in the Albanese government’s new national cultural policy, misleadingly titled Revive: A Place for Every Story, a Story for Every Place. The first actionable clause of Revive is a commitment to – yes, you guessed it – ‘implementing in full the Uluru Statement from the Heart’. Indeed, for there to be a bright future for the arts in this country, artists must throw off the shackles of government.

So it’s little wonder, I suppose, that we’ve ended up with Mob Tickets – but I just cannot believe that orchestras and ballet troupes crippled by financial insecurity would implement a ticketing scheme that can so easily be defrauded. Because, in purchasing your Mob Ticket, you don’t have to provide any identification at check-out…

If there is a demographic that should be most affronted by all this, it is arts students. If you’re a young, studying artist, a concession ticket to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s Birds of Tokyo concert still sets you back at least $47 – and that’s for a seat so poorly placed it affords only a restricted view. It’s expensive to strive towards success in the arts, as well as to remain visible in arts circles. One would think that if a discounted ticketing program to the extent of Mob Tickets were to be implemented, it would predominantly strive to assist those who are to be this country’s future creators.

And don’t be surprised if ticket prices for non-Aboriginal Australians fractionally increase in the future to make up the inevitable box office shortfalls, either. On principle, this whole fiasco is repugnant. Non-Aboriginal Australians – who fork out tens of billions of dollars in welfare annually for their Indigenous countrymen – are equally embattled by cost-of-living pressures. They have every right if they so wish to attend the opera or the ballet via a fair ticket pricing scheme. Instead, non-Aboriginal Australians attending SSO and MSO performances should feel like second-class patrons who are subsidising the luxuries of others, because that’s exactly what they’re doing. The Australian Ballet even brazenly admits this: ‘By not selecting Mob Tix if you are not eligible you are supporting the Australian Ballet to continue offering accessible options to our community.’

What an absolute, abhorrent disgrace. For those of us who just want to make and enjoy high-quality art, all of this is such a damn shame.

Alexander Voltz is a composer whose predilection for art above identity and ideology is quickly destroying his career.