Page 3239 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 21 August 2019
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Here we are debating whether we should call on the Labor-Greens government to engage in a task that they should have completed years ago: exploring “the feasibility of a large-scale venue suitable for hosting multicultural community events”. Considering how sluggish this government has been in taking any meaningful action, I welcome this step forward.
I do, however, find it interesting that Mr Gupta and Ms Orr have not provided any greater clarity to the government in their motion. It is one thing to have a large-scale venue; it is an entirely different thing for such a venue to be genuinely accessible to multicultural community groups. This is a central concern for nearly all community organisations, many of which struggle to pay the booking fees at current venues. I want to make this point perfectly clear: a large-scale venue intended for hosting multicultural community events will be completely worthless if multicultural community groups cannot afford the use of it.
On this point, this government does not inspire confidence. Many multicultural groups feel as though they are being priced out of full participation in the ACT community. For example, numerous groups have told me that they no longer even consider participating in the National Multicultural Festival, because they simply cannot afford to pay the fees. In recent years, many organisations have participated in the festival as a fundraising endeavour and have lost money. The general consensus is that those opposite seem to have little real world understanding of what it takes to run a volunteer community group.
This extends to venue hire. This motion focuses on the possibility of providing a large-scale venue at EPIC. EPIC already hosts a diverse range of events and seems to have spaces that suit them all, including car parking. They include the Cancon games conference, the Craft & Quilt Fair, the Lifeline book fair and the Wedding Expo.
The fact is that EPIC, which is run by this government, hires out facilities to community groups at a prohibitively high cost. I have very recently spoken with one multicultural group that hired an indoor venue at EPIC for a cultural celebration. The cost was $10,000. That is ridiculous. They were shocked to be told that this was the not-for-profit rate. Since the event was not ticketed, they have to cover this cost out of their organisation’s very limited budget. Not only that; they were told that they would be required to pay extra for electricity used and rubbish removal. The final bill was much more than the estimate they had been given beforehand. Needless to say, this community organisation will not be holding any more events at EPIC. Many other multicultural community groups, even large ones, operate on a budget that simply would not allow them to even consider booking a small venue at EPIC at current prices.
Some multicultural community organisations have dealt with the rising cost of everything under this government by moving their events to Queanbeyan. The most high profile of these has been the Harmonie German Club’s decision to shift their annual Oktoberfest event from EPIC to Queanbeyan after venue hire fees increased from $6,000 to $41,000 over just a five-year period. But they have not been alone. In 2019, I have already attended several cultural events in Queanbeyan hosted by Canberra-based multicultural community groups.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video