Thursday, 2 May 2024

Adjournment

Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Housing, Minister for Water, Minister for Equality) (18:41): I move:

That the house do now adjourn.

Warrandyte Mechanics Institute and Arts Association

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (18:41): (862) My matter for the adjournment tonight is for the attention of the Minister for Creative Industries, and it relates to a visit to the Warrandyte community pottery studio at the invitation of Nicole Werner, the member for Warrandyte. I met with a number of key people there, Grant Purdy the secretary, Bruce Turner, Marion Cooper and others, and I was very pleased to see their remarkable work that they do. The Warrandyte community pottery studio is part of the Warrandyte Mechanics Institute and Arts Association, which operates that organisation. The space that they operate in is heritage listed, and it is a beautiful space, a former and original CFA station – a stone CFA station with wood structures above that and behind it. It is the structures behind it that I want to draw to the attention of the Minister for Creative Industries, because this pottery studio, widely used in the community for many, many decades by hundreds of people every month going through, learning pottery and continuing to operate in a great social environment, has a significant problem, and that is termites. The termites have eaten away much of the structure of the back half of the studio.

Nicole is very active in advocating for the people at the pottery studio and ensuring that there is some government money to help rebuild this important studio. It has been operating for a very long time. It is interesting to hear the long history of the parent body, the Warrandyte Mechanics Institute and Arts Association, which is owned by trust deed by everyone who lives within 2 kilometres or 2 miles of the institute. But the termites have eaten it away. It is going to require work. The Warrandyte arts group have actually done the work; they have got a proposal and a budget. It is going to cost $240,000, and they have raised $20,000 already. I would have thought, given the important social capital generated by this body, the important hub for the arts that this is and operates as, that there would be a significant level of state government support that could be available for it. Now, the council will provide some money, but money, perhaps in the order of $200,000, is going to be needed to rebuild the damage done by termites to this structure. Nicole is very active in pushing for this grant and for the support of the Warrandyte arts group. I was deeply impressed by them, very impressed by their positive approach.