Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Macnamara is home to many outstanding creative and artistic organisations and businesses. It is a part of our local community to come to St Kilda, to come especially to Southbank and to come to South Melbourne and other parts of the electorate because you are coming to visit some of the iconic parts of Melbourne and some of the iconic artistic parts of our city, our state and our country. It's not just the big organisations but also the smaller local and independent artistic organisations that we are so proud of in our local area. As everyone in this place knows, these organisations have been devastated by the pandemic. The Prime Minister announcing in that very first press conference that gatherings would be restricted meant that immediately six months worth of work for our artistic organisations went. In Victoria it was even longer.

Throughout the pandemic these organisations have felt uncertainty and difficulty like they never have before. That is why it was incredibly frustrating that the City of Port Phillip, which traditionally has done an outstanding job of supporting local artists and artistic organisations, decided to end the funding for six iconic organisations in my electorate. I've spoken about it once in this place already, and I am rising again to say that before the budget is set in the City of Port Phillip we must make sure that we have this funding reinstated. We must make sure that the Australian Tapestry Workshop, Phillip Adams BalletLab at Temperance Hall, Rawcus theatre company, Red Stitch Actors' Theatre, Theatre Works and the Torch are all recipients of funding from the City of Port Phillip.

This pandemic has been devastating, but it is now up to all levels of government to ensure that all businesses and organisations are there on the other side. There are very few that have had it as difficult as our creative industries. In Macnamara they are a part of who we are and of our local area, and we are so proud of them. That is exactly why the City of Port Phillip and the councillors need to make sure that the funding in the upcoming budget—in the next couple of weeks—includes funding for our local artistic and creative organisations. Now is not the time to be cutting funding. Now is the time to be supporting our creative organisations, our artists and these small and independent organisations that make our community as wonderful a place as it is.