Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Reid Park, in my city of Townsville, is home to the fantastic Townsville 500 V8 Supercars, but its pits are pretty much empty for the rest of the year. That is why I took great pride last week when I fronted the cameras there with Graeme Connors, the great country and western singer based in Mackay, and Dan Rosen, the CEO of ARIA, to announce my plan to make the pits in Reid Park an organic live music scene in Townsville.

Graeme Connors said words that will stay with me for an awfully long time, that music should never lose its 'regionality' and that we must be able to tell our stories with our words and with our music. I was pleased to be joined by Stevie Mitchell from the band King, who will be touring this September. If you get a chance to see them, they are a fantastic blend of all sorts of music, including Aboriginal, hip-hop and didgeridoo. This is the music that comes out of the regions.

I was lucky enough to be a young man when bands like Regurgitator, Custard and George were coming through in Brisbane. There is no reason why we cannot see that in Townsville. This is a $40 million facility which is underutilised throughout the year. We want to make sure that we use this facility properly, that we do get this music scene here and that we are as creative and collaborative as humanly possible for the young people of Townsville, those people with the skills in music and the ability to join others in generating a very creative space which is good for absolutely everyone in my city of Townsville.

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