Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business (House)) Share this | Hansard source

I warn the chamber that this speech will not be nearly as coherent as what you've just heard. I plan to take full advantage of the fact that the relevance rule is completely disregarded during appropriations debates. I have four different speeches that I've been wanting to deliver, and I'm just going to do one after the other with absolutely no segue. To anyone who tries to string it together in a coherent way in the years to come, I wish you well.

I will start with a message that I would have delivered next week were parliament sitting—but it won't be, so I will offer the message now and distribute it later. Of course, while parliament's not sitting will be the end of the period of Ramadan and the celebration of Eid al-Fitr. On behalf of federal Labor, I would like to extend my best wishes to all Muslim communities in Australia and around the world that are celebrating the end of a month of fasting and the beginning of Eid al-Fitr. The announcement of Eid al-Fitr is made at the sighting of the crescent moon, an Islamic tradition which was used to identify the new month in the Islamic calendar. It marks the end of a month which many thousands of Australians have dedicated to fasting, praying and performing acts of charity. While technically, I suppose, there are some parallels with my own tradition of Lent, I think it's fair to say that my tradition has no understanding of fasting when compared to the fasting that takes place during the blessed month of Ramadan.

Preparations for Eid al-Fitr begin well before the sighting of the moon, with decorations going up in homes, on shopfronts and at local mosques. The sweet aroma of the traditional shortbreads, ma'amoul, fills homes and streets the nights before as families and friends unite for a final iftar, a final breaking of the fast, and gather to share the last Ramadan prayers and blessings. Celebrations begin at dawn, with traditional prayers at the local mosque, and are followed by the visiting of families, friends and communities, sharing the stories of the month that passed and the blessings of the year to come. Whenever I go down to celebrate with so many friends at the end of Ramadan, I always park many, many blocks away. There's this wonderful period before dawn of people walking and the group gradually getting larger and larger as you get closer. That journey towards the gathering is a beautiful part for me every time we get to Eid al-Fitr.

One of the nicest things about the celebration is the sense of unity and happiness shared amongst Muslims from various cultural backgrounds. Colourful displays of new garments are paraded, and the exuberant faces of the children fill the space as they collect money and gifts. The celebration of Eid al-Fitr, like the celebrations we mark from around the world throughout the year, is a great example of how strong and successful modern multicultural Australia is, and how our Australian story is built on the experiences of communities from around the world. To everyone celebrating, Eid Mubarak.

I want to let the House know about a wonderful victory for a school only a few blocks from where I live, Punchbowl Boys High. There is a band competition running in New South Wales for high school bands, known as YouthRock, and this year Punchbowl Boys' High won. I'm tremendously proud of them. The band members are Lucas Tekii, Yoosuf Mohamed, Eliata Ulutui, Wilkinson Papalii-Afoa, Theodore Crysma Tavete, and Micah Papalii-Tulanai. They're a great band. They're a band that has been kind enough to allow me to jam with them. I've turned up at the school with a guitar, and they've been kind enough to allow me to jam with them. They are known as the 320—that's the name of their band. There's a thing where on the one hand you have three fingers, and on the other you have two, and you're photographed. For those wondering about the mystery of how a band becomes 320, 320 it's the room number of the music room at Punchbowl Boys High. They have been writing originals for some time. One of their songs which was actually played on ABC Radio today is 'My Way', which, for members who might be concerned, is not the Frank Sinatra version but an original by themselves. To their music teacher, Michael White, I extend congratulations. They are a group of young men of great talent. We wish them well, and I hope that they're well on the way to adding their music to what forms the soundtrack of our nation.

Shortly before the change of government back in 2013, the Live Music Office was established. There was a reason we established the Live Music Office: for a long time in the arts there was a view that popular music didn't really need government support because it is so commercial and has been able to very much look after itself. However, there are some challenges that have been emerging over the years. The business model that Australian popular music has largely been built on has been changing fundamentally. The shift from purchasing of albums—I'll admit, I still purchase vinyl, but many people don't—to the purchasing of downloads and streaming has meant a significant difference in how bands earn their money.

At the same time, there's been a rapid decline in the number of venues available for them. The bands that many of the members of this place grew up with worked a pub circuit. In evidence that was given in New South Wales only yesterday, Isabella Manfredi from The Preatures—spelt the way you spell 'creatures', not with any other meaning—listed off a series of venues that were important to her band in Sydney when they were getting started. Having gone through the list of the venues—she went through Drummoyne RSL, Spectrum, Q Bar, Deans, Candy's Apartment, Bar Me, Flinders Bar, World Bar, The Gaelic, The Hopetoun, The Sandringham, The Lizard Lounge, The Standard, The Hi-Fi, Oxford Art Factory, The Lansdowne and Club 77—only two of them still exist as live music venues. This is a challenge that's happening around the country. There's a series of issues that have caused this. Ultimately our music industry has challenges now that are different to what it used to have. Some of those are caused by government policy and some of those need to be facilitated and improved through government policy.

I want to make sure that Australian music always forms the soundtrack to our lives. I want the next generation to grow up with Australian music. I want all of us to grow old with Australian music. That means we need to make sure that the entire ecosystem around our music industry survives. A whole lot of the forms of revenue that used to be there for bands are not there at the moment, and we can't just say, 'Okay, we need to have the big venues where someone's playing for 10,000.' That would be like saying, 'The only athletes we need to look after are the Australian Olympic team.' Cultural activity like popular music is the same as any area of excellence. You need your community level that people come through—where they grow, where they practise, where they play again and again—and 200 gigs later they're playing to very large venues. That is what needs to be possible.

The Live Music Office, since it was established, has been making sure there is a body to deliver on that. The guaranteed funding that we had put in place continued for the contracted period that we had left, but after the initial three-year funding, which was provided until 2016, the Live Music Office subsequently received project funding from the Australia Council, which has now run out. With APRA AMCOS, it then delivered further financial support. The Live Music Office matters. It might not matter if you didn't mind what came on on the radio—if you didn't mind that all the songs people are hearing have American accents and if you didn't mind that the places being sung about are on the other side of the planet—but, if we want Australian stories and Australian imagination and Australian voices to be what we get to hear as the soundtrack to our lives, then backing the Live Music Office is something that needs to happen. The government has still baulked at providing continued funding for them, and I would simply urge the government in the strongest terms. This doesn't need to be political. In fact, it would be bizarre for anyone to say only one side of politics supports popular music. When Rock The House is on, I see members of parliament from both sides all going up to enjoy the popular music. Those artists don't come here simply to entertain us; they come to make sure that we hear them—that we hear them about copyright, that we hear them about venues, that we hear them about making sure the entire ecology that makes for a viable, strong, resilient music industry is always there—and the Live Music Office is a critical part of that.

There is a final thing I want to say a few words about. I want to advise the House why it is that on so many occasions I stand up and make speeches about the different celebrations that are being enjoyed around Australia. Sometimes they're faith based; sometimes they're culturally based. Sometimes they're about my faith; sometimes they're about the faiths of others. Whenever I put one of those speeches up on social media, if it's a message about, for example, Ramadan, Holi or a series of different celebrations, it's interesting that I'll straightaway get the comments: 'I didn't hear you mention Christmas in that speech. Why don't you ever say anything about Christmas and Easter?' Then, at Christmas and Easter time, when I put up messages about those celebrations—and with Easter I often have to put up two because of the different Orthodox dates—the message that comes back is: 'How dare you try to impose your faith on me?' I think we all need to understand that Australia is a nation of 24 million stories and they're all as Australian as each other. They come in two broad forms: either stories that have always, ever since the first sunrise, had their heritage on this land or stories that, at some point, have come here through immigration. But they're all Australian.

I'll always resist being told, 'Instead of saying "Happy Christmas!" you should say "Happy holidays!"' If what someone is celebrating is a holiday, then I'm really happy for them to wish me a happy holiday, if that's what matters to them. If what matters to them is that they're celebrating Hanukkah and they want to wish me a 'Happy Hanukkah!' I think that's great and I'll wish them a 'Happy Christmas!' And when we have carols in my local area at Wiley Park, the place will be full of people. And from the way that they are dressed when they come to those carols, it's pretty obvious they're from a range of different faiths.

Last Saturday night, for the first time, we closed Howden Street in Lakemba during Ramadan, and the street was packed. There were plenty of people there who were there to eat the different food from different cultures and plenty of those people had not been fasting all day—me included—but they'd come because that sense of invitation we offer to each other is itself part of being Australian. Since I issued the invitation for people to come down to Lakemba any time of night during Ramadan, I have seen one other member there—I won't give him up—from the other side of politics. He was there on a private basis, but he came. The invitation was real.

What I'd encourage everybody to think about is we either end up with all the different cultures and become a nation where we tell some people they don't belong or we go down even the American path of assimilation, where you often don't wish anybody a happy anything other than 'Happy Holidays!' because you don't want to offend. There is no offence in generosity. There is no offence in embracing each other's celebrations. Those of us who don't have a First Nations background here on this land still appreciate the welcome to country. All of us can take the goodwill of a Christmas message, of an Eid message, of a Hanukkah message, of a Dipawali message and, with that, build that sense, not of a soup—where everything is pureed and where all the ingredients come out tasting the same—but of a salad, where every ingredient keeps its identity. Together we form a flavour that's distinctively, uniquely and proudly Australian.

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