Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Spring usually signifies show season back home, and at this time of year you'll commonly find me most weekends at a local show or field day in my electorate. It's a fantastic way to engage with communities and constituents. Shows or field days are a major event for regional communities, bringing them huge social and economic benefits.

This year, understandably, the majority of these events have been cancelled. In June our government committed $36 million to supporting agricultural show societies to recover from the effects of COVID-19, ensuring that they can survive this pandemic. While this was a welcome announcement for the local show societies, it sadly didn't include reference to field days. Accordingly, I set about immediately rectifying this through the agency of Minister Littleproud.

Barker has two major field days: the Riverland Field Days, usually held in mid-September each year, which attract over 15,000 people and host over 350 exhibitors over two days; and of course the South East Field Days, attracting some 22,000 people in March each year. Both these events have been cancelled this year, with the South East Field Days committee making the very difficult decision to not only cancel the 2020 field day but also the 2021 event.

I'm so pleased our government has now extended financial support to field days as well as show societies to ensure these events can remain financially viable and continue to support regional communities post pandemic.