It was cheering in its way to hear, from the lips of that shrewd urbane man Tony Burke, that 246 million more dollars are to be spent on the arts. Some people will recall that in Shane Maloney’s detective story The Brush Off his hero Murray Whelan – who is by way of being a political advisor is asked by his employer, a politician called Agnelli, ‘Whelan what are the arts?’ Well, Tony Burke is not open to this charge of ignorance.