Page 1558 - Week 05 - Thursday, 11 April 2013
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I would have hoped that that was the discussion that we might have had today about what are the broader ramifications for the community, not just recite a list. It is very easy to recite lists. It is important that we get the broader issues right. The broader issues cover things like amenity for the local residents and whether, when we hold a big sporting event at Manuka, there is adequate parking and indeed, afterwards, whether there are adequate tables and chairs and places at the cafes and restaurants and bars and pubs for the visitors. It is about how we maximise the return.
In the old retail sense, you might think of a blockbuster, if you are doing it in a strictly commercial sense, as a loss leader. You get them into the city but then you reap the benefit of having people in the city. Of course, there are cultural dividends from the blockbusters that one would find very hard to put a value on. The value of having access to that art, to see that art, to inspire the young, is tremendous and we should never discount that.
The real question that I think needs to be addressed in this MPI is this: are we actually getting the best out of the blockbusters? Can we do more? You can only see from this side of the chamber, for instance, the call for parking strategies around these events to make sure there is adequate parking and adequate services to back the events up so people do not go away saying, “The exhibition was great, but it was hard to get there. It was hard to park. We couldn’t get a booking at a restaurant. We couldn’t get a room in a hotel.”
These are the things that need to be addressed. These are the things that the government has ignored for a very long time. I think Ms Berry is quite right when she says that major events are important to our economy, but I do not think Ms Berry understands how her party gets it so wrong so often. That is why for about four of five years now we have been calling for the government to have an events strategy. A blockbuster fund, which is welcomed and which we have said is a good thing, is not a strategy. Where is the strategy to ensure that everyone gets the maximum flow-on effect that we can get from the blockbusters that the National Gallery stages? Where is the strategy to make sure that, for instance, the local arts community and the local arts providers—whether it be a local, privately owned gallery or indeed some of the facilities, for instance, at Bungendore—get the benefit? There was a public forum hosted by the Childers Group in April last year. Mrs Dunne is quoted as saying:
… the forum produced some constructive discussion about the future of Canberra’s arts scheme.
A recurring theme was the fact that smaller-scale aspects of Canberra’s arts scene were often overshadowed by events at large institutions.
“A big message was there’s no connection between tourism, business development and the arts … [and] the extent to which the tourism bodies won’t advertise home-grown arts on their websites or won’t promote it as part of the experience of coming to Canberra,” Mrs Dunne said.
“They will promote the blockbuster arts tourism, but there’s no spin-off about what else you might do while you’re in Canberra of an artistic nature.”
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