Thursday, 19 June 2025

Ministers statements: events industry

Jacinta ALLAN (Bendigo East – Premier) (14:46): Tonight, Thursday night, thousands of Victorians will be flocking to Melbourne’s central business district because literally the inner city will be going off. Whether it is that fantastic performance of Beetlejuice that will be on at the Regent Theatre or Jesus Christ Superstar, which will be on at the Princess Theatre, there are going to be a lot of people out and about after work this evening and they will be taking full advantage of Melbourne as the live music capital of Australia, the arts and cultural capital of Australia, the major events capital and the capital of fun. There will be a lot of people having fun tonight.

What we are seeing is that overall activity in the city is up 4 per cent on last year, hotel room bookings are exceeding the number at its last peak in 2019 and foot traffic is higher. This does not happen by accident. It comes by having a pipeline of events backed by a government that supports those events. We invest in the arts, major events and sports because it is investing in jobs and it is investing in people. That is exactly what Victorians expect us in this place to be focused on: them. We are focused on supporting them to have a secure job, real cost-of-living relief and support and the opportunity to get out and about and have fun.

But we know there are some who are more focused on spreadsheets than set lists – balance sheets instead of bar tabs. Whilst punters tonight will be queuing up for cocktails, there will be others who will be queuing up to do the numbers. I say this very clearly to Victorians: we are focused on them, we are focused on their jobs and we are focused on supporting what matters to Victorians. That is why our major events industry is backing jobs, backing workers and backing Victorians every single day.