24-06-2025
Here's something absolutely cooked about books in Australia
Prize money doesn't simply affect an individual artist but, in some cases, their community as well. Miles Franklin winner and Bundjalung author Melissa Lucashenko said she paid $15,000 tax on her win in 2019. She says: "I'm very happy to pay tax - to contribute to a decent society - but at the same time, I belong to an extremely impoverished community. I am regularly called on to give money to people who buy their food on credit. Who can't bury their dead, or who need petrol to get to funerals, or who can't get out of jail to attend the funeral of a parent because that means paying the prison system the astronomical cost of guards to accompany them. $15,000 fills a lot of grocery carts, and a lot of petrol tanks."
