Kate Emery: WA Government hypocritical in pushing Book Week while leaving little funding for public libraries

If you’re a parent with children of a certain age there’s a reasonable chance you’ve spent this weekend making a series of increasingly desperate trips to Spotlight. By night you’re on the couch with needle and thread, turning your thumbs into pin cushions as you attempt to turn a bit of black material into a convincing pair of dragon wings for your Wings of Fire-obsessed eight-year-old. Or maybe you’ve outsourced the problem to the internet and have, instead, spent your days staking out the front door to avoid Australia Post screwing you with a “sorry we missed you” slip instead of the Pig the Pug or Hermione Granger costume you need. (Good luck, you may need it — those posties could get the drop on a ninja). Or maybe, just maybe, you’ll awake one morning this week with the terrifying realisation that you forgot to organise a Book Week costume. Cue the rush to scavenge a literary costume from the contents of the clean laundry basket, existing dress-ups and whatever wardrobe items you’re prepared to sacrifice on the altar of your incompetence. Book Week is upon us and, while I realise plenty of parents have good reason to resent the unpaid labour it demands, I am one of those saddos who not only enjoys Book Week but finds it worthwhile. Kids learn so much about what we value by how we talk about things. Getting dressed up to celebrate books tells kids that books can be a source of fun, excitement and joy, not just homework or a tool for correcting a wobbly table. At a time when fewer kids are reading for pleasure, a day to celebrate books is worth the pain of, say, having to explain to your child that, while Starflight the dragon does have a black face, she cannot personally paint her face black. The “but” in this column — you knew one was coming, right? — is directed not towards Book Week but our State Government, which appears happy to celebrate books when it comes to putting out media releases about Book Week but not so much when it comes to adequately funding public libraries. WA’s 232 public libraries are jointly funded through the State and local governments — the former provides funding to buy books, magazines and DVDs and so on, and the latter provides the building and staff and covers the operating costs. Unfortunately, State Government funding for libraries has been going the way of the polar ice-caps and Elon Musk’s latest attempt at a livestream. (Down. It’s going down.) Between 2012-13 and 2022-23 State Government public library funding increased by four per cent, which I realise sounds like the opposite of going down. Except, in that same time, the population jumped 15 per cent and the consumer price index — a measure of inflation — rose 28 per cent, meaning that in real terms funding is significantly down. As a result local governments are dipping into their own pockets to top up funding for books. That’s unacceptable at a time when the State Government is sitting on a $3.2 billion surplus like Smaug on his treasure (and if you too grew up in libraries you’ll recognise that literary reference). According to the WA Local Government Association’s State Government budget submission, another $30 million is needed over four years just to restore library funding to 2012-13 levels. On WALGA numbers, State Government funding for library books lags much of the country: roughly $3.50 per capita versus Queensland ($4.30), South Australia ($4.50) and Victoria ($5.90). What makes this such a bummer is that libraries are a resource the value of which is hard to overstate. There’s the books, of course, but that’s a gimme. The bigger value of libraries is the broader community service they provide: a warm place to read, study or use a computer without being moved on or asked to pay; a place to take the kids that doesn’t cost a thing; a hub of free courses in everything from how to research your family history to how to use a computer. As WA celebrates the written word this week and parents find themselves constructing an ice-cream cone “horn” (Thelma the Unicorn), shopping for Marketplace tutus at 7pm (Breaking Pointe) or explaining to a child why they can’t just wear knickers to school (Captain Underpants), their ire should be reserved not for whoever dreamed up Book Week to torture them but towards a State Government that doesn’t value our libraries the way they deserve.