Page 3657 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 13 September 2017
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terms of bringing communities together and enhancing social wellbeing—although I am a little biased in this matter—the Multicultural National Festival.
Over 22 years Canberra’s annual National Multicultural Festival has become recognised as Australia's biggest celebration of cultural diversity. The festival generates millions of dollars annually for the economy and is increasingly a tourism drawcard. As Ms Cheyne mentioned, more than 280,000 people flocked to the heart of Canberra in just one weekend to take part in the 2017 festival as it celebrated its 21st birthday. Every year the Canberra community and thousands of visitors and performers make the weekend’s celebrations an overwhelming success.
This success is in no small part due to the volunteers who give their time during the festival. This year 4½ thousand people gave their time to ensure that the three days ran smoothly and successfully and that their communities were able to share their culture, their food, their dancing and their singing with the rest of the Canberra community and our visitors. The ongoing success of the National Multicultural Festival is a reflection of Canberra’s cultural diversity, which is something all Canberrans can be proud of and, again, something that was spoken about passionately by members on both sides of the chamber earlier today.
This year saw innovations at the festival, including sanctuary spaces that were available for the first time for people to take some time away from the crowds, including a children’s sanctuary, which was extremely successful. Next year’s festival is slated to run from Friday, 16 February to Sunday, 18 February 2018 and will no doubt continue to be a favourite event of the Canberra community.
I remind members that stallholder and entertainer applications are now open, and close on 30 September. So if you know people in your community who would like to get involved, please encourage them to submit applications. Late applications will not be accepted as it is such a popular event.
While this motion before us today and obviously the strategy itself focus on major events, I also want to take the opportunity to reflect on the importance of local and community events. They may not bring large numbers of visitors to our city or see large-scale investment in the economy, but these events—whether they are larger ones like the Canberra Nara Festival or smaller community, cultural and religious events—are the backbone of a vibrant community. Attending these events is one of the great honours that each of us in this place has on a regular basis.
The motion mentions the introduction of additional family-friendly celebrations. This is an extremely important element of bringing our community together. In this context I would like to mention the Family and Community Day picnic that UnionsACT is running on 25 September, and encourage people to go to that event, as this will be—assuming that the bill passes tomorrow—the last Family and Community Day when we will have that opportunity. Next year we will be able to support Labour Day, and I am looking forward to working with Events ACT and others to figure out how we support Labour Day and celebrate the great achievements of the labour movement in a family-friendly way on that day.
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