Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Over the last two months in Ballarat, it's really come alive with art as the Ballarat International Foto Biennale has brought world-class photography to our regional community, including from some of our fantastic photographers in the press gallery here in Canberra. For over a decade now, the biennale has been the centrepiece of our city's increasingly busy arts calendar, and with every edition it's grown bigger and bigger reaching out to more and more in our community. Two years ago, over 26,000 visitors came to enjoy the show, each with an unforgettable experience right here in central Victoria. This year, initial estimates suggest that over 35,000 visitors have come to our city during the biennale. Looking at the amount of yellow tote bags around the city and town and further beyond, so many visitors is no surprise at all. These tens of thousands of visitors have come to see the core program of works from world-class artists in world-class settings like the Ballarat fine art gallery and in other formal spaces. But even beyond the core program, the biennale has truly taken over the entire city.

One of the great joys of the biennale comes from the art that you stumble across as you walk into a cafe, a restaurant, a bar or a store, and on the walls of laneways and those cafes are works that stretch beyond your imagination and make you consider those places in a new way. Our laneways, our cafes, our pizzerias, shopping centres, public gardens, churches and even bike stores—just about every imaginable space in Ballarat—have been filled with art. You wander into a space that you know so well and you see incredible art on the walls. It is such a privilege.

For this gift to our community, thanks must go particularly to Fiona Sweet and her team of staff and the many volunteers who have made the biennale this year such a fantastic event. I want to thank them personally for all that they have done to the city. Our home is a much more exciting place because of their efforts, their initiative and their hard work. The chances that they have taken with the biennale—putting on an international event such as this is not an easy thing to do—and with the purchase of one of our heritage buildings and the life that they're now giving to that in the new National Centre for Photography have absolutely transformed our city and the city's art scene forever. Opportunities are being provided for students, particularly from our public schools, to learn photography from some incredibly skilled professionals. Now, with the biennale finishing over the weekend, like the rest of the community I will spend my time looking forward to the next event, in two years time.