Page 1156 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 30 May 2007
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enjoy the experience of seeing their favourite bands, singers or symphonies live on stage. Unfortunately, we have recently heard the news that the Green Room in Altree Court in Phillip will hold its last live show on Saturday, 4 August. The Green Room was voted best live music venue in Canberra three times and it has hosted over a thousand live bands in the last four years.
Despite this loss, there are a great many good venues in Canberra that play live music. The Durham Castle Arms in Kingston has live bands on Friday and Saturday nights. The Transit Bar in the city, very close to the Assembly, often features live music and is well patronised by a range of people of different ages. Both venues are regularly packed full of people of all ages supporting local and, occasionally, interstate bands. There are a great many concerts held at the convention centre and other large venues in Canberra which attract internationally renowned music acts. In the coming few months alone, Canberra venues will feature concerts by internationally renowned acts, including Alice Cooper—we will not get into the battery hen discussion with Alice Cooper—Jet and the famous John Butler Trio. This is a great boon for the people of Canberra. They do not have to travel elsewhere to see live music and they do not have to travel to Sydney or Melbourne to see internationally renowned bands.
We have to be a little careful with this motion, though. The motion calls for the protection of live music. It really does not spell out what it is being protected from. We all know that when it is inappropriately scheduled, especially if it is too loud or at an inappropriate venue, live music can interfere with the quiet enjoyment of others. We should not flippantly dismiss these claims. The challenge is not so much to protect live music from these others but to ensure that live music is organised, scheduled and played in such a way that there is minimal negative impact on others who may not be so keen on the performance.
This means that we need fair rules and processes for noise complaints to ensure that we can strike a proper balance between the interests of venues with live bands and the interests of those nearby. In considering ways of ensuring the protection of live music in Canberra, the government may be interested in a February 2006 report by John Wardle, a live music advocate, on the rationalisation of the regulation of live music in New South Wales. Whilst not bearing directly on the situation in the ACT, the report highlights a number of issues which are important to venues holding live music performances. I am indebted to the Australasian Performing Right Association for providing me with that document. APRA—not the corporate regulator, but APRA of the music variety—is there to protect the interests of songwriters and composers.
The main issues raised by the report were as follows. Governments should ensure that there is a fair licensing process and that there are fair rules and processes for dealing with noise complaints. The report suggests that assessment criteria for noise should be technology neutral, with live music being considered on an equal footing with other sources of noise such as sports broadcasts and poker machines—no doubt something near and dear to Labor members opposite, as it funds their repeated campaigns. Let me digress for a moment, because poker machines are probably the single biggest threat to live music. I would be keen to hear Mr Gentleman explain to us how he reconciles the growth of poker machines and the support they are providing for him and his colleagues with his declared commitment to live music, which generates far less revenue in places such as the Labor club.
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