Page 4223 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 26 November 2013
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and the incredible Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander events that have been presented this year. I am particularly proud of the work that our centenary team has done to bring those events here to Canberra, working with our local Aboriginal community and artists, as well as the broader Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community in Australia.
Some of the events have even been mentioned here in the Assembly. Mr Smyth gave his famous speech about Jack Charles v The Crown, which I will not repeat. There was the Sally Gabori exhibition at the Drill Hall. Sally Gabori is an internationally respected artist from Mornington Island, and her vibrant and very colourful works are particularly expressive of the culture of her region. We had the National Multicultural Festival with the Indigenous showcase, just outside here in Civic Square—days of wonderful Indigenous events, food and stalls, a real coming together. I have been glad to hear during the annual reports process from the minister that this year’s National Multicultural Festival will include further Indigenous events that embrace and are articulated with the rest of the festival.
We heard from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander activists, old and new, at the Inside Out forum, which included a special session for participants at the tent embassy. We witnessed the significant Murra Bidgee Mullangari River ceremony recently at Uriarra Crossing, which saw Major Sumner and the Tal Kin Jeri dancers from the Coorong in South Australia come together with Adrian Brown and the team from the ACT Parks and Conservation Service and the Ngambri dancers for ceremony.
We have seen the performance of Wulamanayuwi and the Seven Pamanui from the Tiwi Islands in Northern Territory, a story which is somewhat similar to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. We have recently seen the premiere of a new work, Biami, by Duncan Smith and Maitland Schnaars from WA, and the Wiradjuri Echoes. Once again, I compliment the centenary team on their engagement with Canberra’s and Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community in bringing a showcase of events which have done us proud.
Discussion concluded.
Privileges—Select Committee
Proposed establishment
Debate resumed.
MR BARR (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Sport and Recreation, Minister for Tourism and Events and Minister for Community Services) (4.24): The government will not be supporting Mr Smyth’s motion. The motion is one of the more pathetic stunts undertaken by the Liberals in their long career on the opposition bench in this place. The motion seeks to imply that the government has failed to comply with a motion passed by the Assembly on 19 September. Let me be clear: I totally reject the inference in Mr Smyth’s motion. Quite simply, he is wrong. He is wrong.
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