Page 704 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 11 February 2009
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MR BARR (Molonglo—Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Children and Young People, Minister for Planning and Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation) (6.53): I thank Ms Le Couteur for bringing forward this matter for debate in the Assembly today. I apologise on behalf of the Chief Minister who has portfolio responsibility in this area; he is at another event, but I am happy to deputise for him this evening.
There is no doubt that the majority of us in this chamber appreciate the genuine and deep benefits that the arts and culture bring to our community. Of course, live music in all its forms, from opera to hip hop, is no different from the visual arts or live theatre or the cinema or, dare I even say it, public art in this respect.
The ACT government believes it is important for Canberrans to have opportunities for engagement in the arts. To that end it supports and fosters cultural practice, including musical practice. Live performance of popular music is already number one with a bullet on Australia’s cultural top 10, and the most recent figures from the ABS showed that popular music concerts enjoyed the highest attendance rates of cultural activity. Some 25 per cent of Australians aged 15 years or more attended at least one concert a year.
Contemporary music also consistently sells the largest number of tickets of any category of live performance. As I say, the ACT government is conscious of the importance of a flourishing contemporary music scene. We support musicians through the arts fund, through festival funding and through activities such as “groovin’ in the city” and the “around town” program, as well as through major public events such as “celebrate in the park”.
We are also acutely aware that fostering a live music scene has implications for other areas of our community life. It has implications for regulation and legislation, for neighbourhood amenity and for security. The right of one member of our community to enjoy a particular activity must always be balanced against the rights of others, and that is how we get to a point where we can run along as a community and share our city.
The performance of live music is something, of course, the government wants to encourage. Through the Cultural Ministers Council, the ACT, in company with the commonwealth and the states and territories, is exploring best practice principles for the development of a legislative and regulatory environment that properly supports live music.
The council has set up a contemporary music development working group, which is currently looking at ways to support contemporary music venues in Australia. Last year, the Chief Minister wrote to fellow ministers, including myself as Minister for Planning, reminding us of the importance of promoting live music and of finding ways to reduce barriers to the performance of live music. But there are some genuine balancing acts ahead of us. For example, significant changes in relation to order of occupancy has the potential to create a range of unintended and possibly serious consequences, not least because it might create the expected right of veto and thereby
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