QMusic CEO Resigns
The sudden resignation of QMusic CEO Kris Stewart may bring accountability to the troubled organisation, but will it bring change to its toxic culture of favouritism?
The past few months have seen Queensland’s peak music body clean house with this year’s resignations of President Viv Mellish and Vice-President John Collins. It comes amid accusations of improprieties by QMusic board members that have constricted fair competition in the music industry.
Leading the charge has been Howard Duggan, publisher of Australia’s longest-running national street press Scenestr. Mr Duggan is among those who have been calling for a change to how QMusic administers media contracts for major state-sponsored events like the Queensland Music Awards and the BIGSOUND music conference.
These contracts have been routinely awarded to favoured PR and media agencies without a formal tender process, cutting off other operators from lucrative commercial opportunities. Stewart’s resignation follows a concerted effort by Duggan and others to make QMusic accountable for its actions as a taxpayer-funded organisation that has failed in its mission to strengthen the local music industry.
“This moment follows years of unresolved concerns — and a growing number of industry participants deciding that silence was no longer tenable,” Mr Duggan wrote in a statement published on scenestr.com.au.
“At the centre of those concerns has been the repeated allocation of valuable media and publicity opportunities linked to QMusic’s flagship events, BIGSOUND and the Queensland Music Awards. Over an extended period, those opportunities appear to have been concentrated with a single connected party, without a process that was visible, open, or competitive to the broader industry.”
QMusic has quietly whitewashed Stewart’s departure with a shiny PR statement reframing it as the organisation enters a bright new chapter, with no reference to the troubles that preceded it. They speak boldly of Stewart’s achievements during his time as CEO while ignoring the ugly truth of his hasty exit. It’s a line repeated by multiple outlets, including The Music and Mediaweek.
QMusic will now appoint a new CEO as the organisation transitions from an incorporated association to a company limited by guarantee. All is well, or so it seems. But the underlying problem of unfair power imbalances within the local music industry cannot be addressed if QMusic doesn’t even acknowledge it exists in the first place.
Frequent promises of fundamental change have never been fulfilled and the music industry in Queensland still operates under a ‘members only’ policy that actively excludes anyone that falls outside a very small inner circle. MADCAP Global Entertainment is among those organisations that have been affected by QMusic’s actions and excluded from commercial opportunities through corporate favouritism.
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Across successive leadership, QMusic has failed in its mandate to develop, promote, and advocate for the state’s music sector, ensuring it is thriving, diverse, and connected. Currently, it is none of those things.
Since COVID gutted the Australian live music industry, it has struggled to regain even a shadow of its former $3bn/year glory. Instead, it has shrivelled and withered under an old guard mentality that blocks access for anyone that exists outside of a small sphere of influence.
This is why our industry is dying, not because we can’t compete musically (we most certainly can) but because it is hamstrung by outdated modes of thinking and still governed by an exclusive minority of arts administrators.
Though Stewart’s resignation bears some resemblance to QMusic being accountable for the fracas, the same gnawing question lingers: how will the next incarnation of QMusic be any different? The faces may change, as may the corporate structure but there is limited guarantee of an alteration in modus operandi for QMusic until it is seen.
