Department of Communications and the Arts (Australia)
The Australian Department of Communications and the Arts was a department of the Government of Australia charged with responsibility for communications policy and programs and cultural affairs. In December 2019, prime minister Scott Morrison announced that the department would be merged into a new "mega department", the new Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications. In response to criticism from the arts sector, Paul Fletcher, Minister for Communications and the Arts said that the merger was merely administrative and would not result in budget cuts. History. The department was created in September  2015 following Malcolm Turnbull becoming prime minister, replacing the Department of Communications, and transferring responsibility for the arts from the Attorney-General's Department. Operational functions. The Administrative Arrangements Order made on 21 September 2015 detailed the following responsibilities to the department: Language revival project. , the Department is funding the Priority Languages Support Project, being undertaken by First Languages Australia. The project aims to "identify and document critically-endangered languages – those languages for which little or no documentation exists, where no recordings have previously been made, but where there are living speakers". It has so far prioritised 20 languages Department