Wednesday, 20 March 2019

 Ms EDWARDS (Bendigo West) (09:49): On Friday this week the 22nd Castlemaine State Festival kicks off. This is the biggest biennial multi-arts festival in Australia, encompassing visual arts, music, theatre, literature, film and dance, with an extraordinary range of Victorian, Australian and international artists performing and exhibiting. The 10-day program highlights the diversity of the region and its unique ability to communicate and connect globally, with artists from South Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan, Japan, Italy, Germany and Timor-Leste celebrating all things Castlemaine—its success, its beauty, its contradictions, its charm and its uniqueness. Congratulations to festival director Glyn Roberts—this is his first festival as director—and to the board, the staff and the hundreds of volunteers across Castlemaine and the region who will be out in force supporting this great event. This is Castlemaine, a place that is contemporary, classical and, most importantly, communal. I look forward to the opening on Friday night and to another successful festival.