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

This week Australia's largest regional LGBTQIA+ event, the Chillout Festival, begins in Daylesford. There is a huge line-up of events, including Ballarat's iconic drag king, Lance DeBoyle, who is back from performing at World Pride in Sydney. I always look forward to the annual parade that takes over the centre of the town on the Sunday. It is a joyous and inclusive event. There will be a special addition to the Chillout Festival this year, with the installation of the Big Rainbow, designed with members of the LGBTQIA+ and First Nations communities. The Big Rainbow celebrates regional pride. There will be fantastic photo opportunities with the Big Rainbow, and it will encourage some great conversations and highlight the importance of visibility in our regions. I can't think of a better home for it than Daylesford.

One week each year the Goldfields town of Clunes becomes another world; it becomes an international book town. It's an extraordinary experience to wander through a town where every possible space indoors and outdoors has been converted into a book bazaar. This year's festival is on the last weekend in March, and it will feature conversations with authors, illustrators, film, TV and theatre makers, and songwriters. There'll be live music, street performances and thousands of stories at our fingertips. The organisers invite visitors to immerse themselves in Clunes from cover to cover. Again, I am certain that Clunes Booktown Festival will be a spectacular event.

Another event in my electorate I look forward to is CresFest in the first weekend in April. It's hard to believe that Creswick's folk and roots festival only started last year. It is run by a group of dedicated and very busy locals. It's an immersive experience where every location becomes a music and a dance venue. There's the town hall, and there are pubs, cafes, and the local RSL and primary school halls as well as the outdoor stage. Over three days, more than 300 artists descend on Creswick from as far as Tibet, South Africa and the UK and from as close as the next town. You can imagine that, in a town of 3,000 people, there isn't accommodation for that many travelling artists so community members open their homes to host performers for the weekend in exchange for a festival pass.

From regional pride to books to music, events in our region provide opportunities for visitors and locals to explore and experience something out of the ordinary, and I hope many other people across our community get a chance to come to Daylesford, Clunes and Creswick over those weekends.