Thursday, 9 March 2023

Creative industries

John BERGER (Southern Metropolitan) (19:14): (97) My adjournment is to the Minister for Creative Industries in the other place Steve Dimopoulos. For many years our state has been the cultural hub of Australia. We are, as the Premier is fond to say, the cultural capital of Australia. This reputation was solidified thanks to the massive investments of the Victorian budget in 2020 and 2021. We have the most vibrant music scene. We have culture and local artists from the garage to the local pub.

Recently I had the honour of attending the Alexander McQueen exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. Our art galleries are among the best in the world. In the City of Port Phillip there is the Carlisle Street Arts Space, or CSAS. This is in St Kilda town hall and has a range of visual art exhibitions. There is the Jewish Museum of Australia, which presents a mixture of art, culture and learning for people to come together to understand and experience Jewish life. In the City of Boroondara I will soon visit the Romancing the Streetscape exhibition at the town hall, which celebrates the streetscapes and buildings of our beautiful city, and the Boroondara Creative Network, which is a free event held every two months which supports the local creative community network to share and create in the Hawthorn Arts Centre. And the City of Stonnington has commissioned a significant number of murals that contribute to the city’s culture, including Untitled by Be Free; Spring Parrots by Minna Leunig; and A Day at the Market by Paul Sonsie.

But art and culture are more than just aesthetically pleasing. In fact one in 11 jobs in Victoria are from creative industries and are particularly vital to my own Southern Metropolitan Region. I think of the Linden New Art gallery, the Palais, Memo Music Hall, the Victorian Pride Centre, the Espy, NICA – the National Institute of Circus Arts – the Melbourne Recital Centre and the Victorian College of the Arts. They help bring meaning to the lives of our constituents. I hope that one day we can recognise the benefits that art can and does bring to help those suffering with the scourge of mental health issues.

Clearly, we are the nation’s cultural capital. The Andrews Labor government has committed $1.7 billion to the Melbourne arts precinct, a project that will fundamentally transform the cultural precinct from Federation Square through to the NGV and beyond. This project will include the establishment of The Fox: NGV Contemporary, Australia’s newest contemporary art gallery, a world-class gallery right in the heart of Melbourne. When fully functional, the precinct will spur tourism from both interstate and overseas. Its creation will give families a new home to enjoy and explore. As the member for Southern Metropolitan Melbourne, I will be proud to have this incredible project in my electorate. So my question to the Minister for Creative Industries is: what other creative art projects is the government supporting the development of in my electorate of Southern Metro Melbourne?