Page 1308 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 3 April 2019
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to capitalise on the synergies between game and film development. It was indeed a great pleasure to attend one of Screen Canberra’s special film pods over a weekend just last month.
We are of course happy to investigate how we can take further advantage of the opportunities available from e-sports and how we can further leverage our city’s strengths and comparative advantages in these sectors to promote further economic growth in Canberra. This fits very well with our ambition for Canberra as a city that attracts smart people and retains talent. We have a very strong history of leading innovation and entrepreneurial development in these fields in our city and I believe we can work more closely with industry to maximise our opportunities. I thank Mr Pettersson for bringing this motion forward this afternoon and for the support, it would appear, of all members for this opportunity for Canberra.
MR PETTERSSON (Yerrabi) (3.48), in reply: I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to contribute to this debate, particularly Mr Milligan and his profound insights that he clearly gleaned from Google. As I mentioned earlier, Melbourne has already seen success with the Melbourne Open, and other cities around the world have benefitted from hosting individual tournaments on the professional circuit.
What we have in Canberra is an opportunity to evaluate what has happened so far and to choose the best course for us. Whether that is a league of our own, a weekend featuring multiple games or even a dedicated tournament, we are in the right space to investigate the best possible options for Canberra. We are an international city. We have a large population of young and middle aged individuals who play video games, as well as maybe some older individuals who are so inclined, and we also have the facilities in Canberra to host those events. This industry is growing and it is growing exponentially. We can see tournaments with prize pools of $25 million. This is incredible and was unheard of. But this is the future of e-sports as they continue to grow.
Just yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting Reload Bar and Games in the city, which I hope all of you have been to at some point, particularly you, Madam Assistant Speaker Cody, to celebrate your birthday. I was excited by the ideas that we discussed. Canberra genuinely has the potential to be the home of e-sports in Australia. One of the ideas that we discussed yesterday was the prospect of a home-grown league here in Canberra. Such a league would have buy-in from local teams, potentially based in the higher education campuses of our city. By providing a semi-professional local league we can encourage people to build their skills and to compete. It provides a pathway, much like sporting leagues and traditional sports do, for talent scouting and for people to potentially move into the professional arena.
I know that a level of concern has been raised by several people in this debate that people spend too much time in front of the screen as it is, especially kids. I understand that concern. What I would say is that there are benefits to playing video games. They teach complex skills; they encourage team work and come up with strategies. There is such a complexity of video games that it is hard to express in a short speech. While I do understand the hesitation of some to encourage people to play video games, what
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