One of the first official commitments by the new Australian Labor government, which defeated John Howard’s Liberal Party in late November, was the installment of a new literary award “ the country’s richest “ dubbed the Prime Minister’s Literary Award. The new prize will first be handed out late in 2008 to one fiction and one non-fiction title, and comes with a $100,000 pot for each winner. The prize’s startup funding ($1.2 million over four years) also includes $100,000 annually for marketing the award. (All funds are in Australian dollars.)

Unlike the $42,000 Miles Franklin Literary Award, which honours a “published novel or play portraying Australian life in any of its phases,” the new prize is open to Australian writers regardless of where they live or what they write about.

The announcement was made by culture minister Peter Garrett, whom readers of a certain era may recall as the lead singer of counter-culture rockers Midnight Oil. Here’s The Australian on the country’s new dominion of philosopher kings:

The performing artist line on Garrett’s CV matters a great deal to Australia’s arts community; his achievements as the lead singer in an acclaimed rock band [Midnight Oil] that toured the world, they say, gives him first-hand experience of the creative process and the pleasures of performance.

“Perhaps not since (Czech writer and former president) Vaclav Havel has there been a government minister with more practical experience in the arts,” writer Elliot Perlman observes. “One would imagine this has to be a good thing for the arts.”