Page 253 - Week 01 - Thursday, 16 February 2006
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I would simply say that the government is right. The multicultural festival is a very, very important event and a very, very important part of our landscape here, socially as well as economically. It plays a pivotal role, it certainly does, in encouraging ethnic diversity and harmony. You cannot beat having kids of all cultures thrown together in the same shopping centre because nearly everyone shops there on a Saturday afternoon. The food and dance spectacular that we saw here really captured everybody, whether they wanted to be there or not. That is the beauty of that particular event.
That is why Civic, as a venue, is by far the best idea, because it really is an opportunity to expose the strengths of our multicultural community to the broader Australian community; everybody is rubbing shoulders, eating tucker and watching very colourful activities; and it is a brilliant way of promoting diversity. It means that we break down those barriers and force people to have a good, hard look at each other’s culture. It is great.
The activity that we saw on Saturday afternoon was by far the best I have seen in this place in five or six years. There may be some questions about whether the venue can carry that event—it certainly was very crowded—and there may be some things that departments could look at to help the organisers. Be that as it may, the organisers themselves, the festival association, the various multicultural groupings, be they the council or the forum, and the ethnic leaderships did a great job in putting that dance and food spectacular together. The Office of Multicultural Affairs and our departments did the best that they could—urban services, too—in making sure that the central services were in place to assist the festival to roll along quite smoothly.
There were issues and certainly questions of crowds, long queues and maybe some of the amenities. But they are the lessons that I would hope and I would expect the authorities and the city to be looking at and seeing what lessons could be picked up from the experience of last Saturday afternoon. I must say that another activity I went to last night—and I saw the minister there, too—was a really funny affair at the Dickson Tradies. That was the John Barresi program. I have not laughed that hard in a couple of decades. What a great little play that was, put on by the Tradies, with a national-standard class act of John Barresi and his entourage. It was colourful, extremely funny and a bit raw here and there, but what it did was tell a beautiful story about the marriage of two cultures. Therefore, the play itself had a very, very important role to play in this festival. I thought it was fantastic.
My 6-year-old daughter loved it. Thank God, the distorted blue language and suggestive material pouring from John Barresi went right over the top of her head. But she laughed her head off. It is really important that we all laugh at ourselves, be we born to Anglo-Celtics, spectacularly colourful Italian mammas or Brits. That is what that play was really all about. There are always lessons to be learnt. I thought it was a great affair.
The festival is going well so far. We have until the 19th before the festival itself is over. This is very important for Canberra. It certainly promotes the economy. I do not think there are very many cities in this country that look as colourful and as vibrant as Canberra did on Saturday afternoon. Surely if the food and dance spectacular continues to be as successful as that, then it must grow in strength and Canberra’s tourism must get
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