Friday, 14 November 2025

 Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (21:45): (2130) My adjournment tonight is a heartfelt plea to the Minister for Creative Industries to ensure Museums Victoria properly commemorates the 125th anniversary of Australian Federation next year. On 3 September 1901 a massive Australian flag measuring 11 metres by 5.5 metres was raised for the first time on the main dome of the Royal Exhibition Building. Prime Minister Edmund Barton conducted the historic ceremony before a large cheering crowd. The moment followed the federal flag competition exhibition, which attracted more than 32,000 entries and produced five joint winners.

Why is this relevant to Mr Brooks, you might ask? As members here know, the Royal Exhibition Building is a UNESCO World Heritage site and was the temporary home of Australia’s first Commonwealth Parliament. Its role in the birth of our national flag deserves proper recognition. Yet a correspondent of mine, flag historian John Vaughan OAM, has been trying since February to engage Museums Victoria about commemorative activities. Despite multiple calls to the Ask Us helpline and written approaches to senior curators, he has received no substantive response. Mr Vaughan has proposed several thoughtful initiatives: displaying any existing records, mementos or photographs from the 1901 flag raising; exhibiting the Speaker’s Australian flag roadshow, which circulates a similarly sized flag to schools; and launching a public search for the original flag or related historical material. These are exactly the kinds of activities that would bring our Federation story to life.

Substantial public funding supports Museums Victoria. The recent state budget allocated $475.3 million over five years to our major cultural institutions, including $9.6 million for Royal Exhibition Building preservation. Victorians deserve to see these investments translate into responsive institutions that take opportunities to celebrate our shared history. Celebrating our national flag would be an opportunity to bring all of us together as one unified people.

The action I seek, Minister, is for you to get enthused about the idea, to direct Museums Victoria to respond to Mr Vaughan’s correspondence and to work collaboratively on an appropriate commemorative activity for the 125th anniversary of the first raising of the Australian national flag at the Royal Exhibition Building. This is not merely a request about getting your agencies to respond to correspondence, it is a plea for us to honour a historic and pivotal moment when Victoria hosted the birth of Australia’s most enduring national symbol and a chance to celebrate the event as one people.