ADELAIDE WRITERS' WEEK

Mr O'BRIEN (Napier) (14:10): My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier inform the chamber about Adelaide's festival within a festival that is running this week in the Women's Memorial Gardens?

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. M.D. RANN (Ramsay—Premier, Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Social Inclusion, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Sustainability and Climate Change) (14:11): I knew you would be excited about this. Obviously, this is a very special time of the year here in Adelaide. Adelaide Writers' Week is a very crucial part of the festival. It is also a part of the festival that is largely free. This year we celebrate the 25^th Writers' Week, a unique festival within a festival. While none of us present doubt how wonderful a festival it is, the fact that so many of the world's great writers have all made time in their busy schedules to return or come to Adelaide is a testament to how much it is loved by readers and writers alike.

Of course, when you think that there are hundreds, if not many more than that, thousands, of writers' festivals around the world, it is acknowledged that, along with Hay-on-Wye in Wales and also the Frankfurt Book Fair, Adelaide Writers' Week is pre-eminent in the world which is why some of the world's great writers like Ian McEwan this morning, David Malouf, Paul Auster and others are here in Adelaide.

Of course we go to enjoy the passionate exchange of thoughts and ideas, to participate in panel discussions, to simply sit and listen to a range of magnificent writers or to talk and debate with old friends and new. This delightful festival is about nurturing writers and readers alike, encouraging not just the passive exercise of reading but the active exchange of thoughts, stories and ideas.

So, under the shade of the trees, sheltering in the tents or on the grass in the Women's Memorial Garden for six days, we can experience a full program of writers from a number of nations around the world. Writers of literary fiction, poets, biographers, novelists, journalists, editors, publishers and readers will gather for a rich and rewarding experience. I strongly encourage members of parliament to go and have this experience in terms of satisfying their own questing minds.

The 2008 Writers' Week is dedicated to one of the original initiators of our beloved festival, much-loved author, Colin Thiele, author of books such as Fire in the Stone, Magpie Island, Hammerhead Light and Storm Boy. Colin's stories continue to introduce generations to the wonder of books and he is sorely missed. Sunday saw the opening of the 2008 Adelaide Writers' Week. I was delighted to present the much anticipated 2008 National Festival Awards for Literature created by the government and honouring Australia's and South Australia's best literary talent.

With 667 entries submitted for this Writers' Week's awards, they are the nation's most competitive literary awards, with over $1 million being awarded over the time of the festival awards for literature. This year I was delighted to present the South Australian Premier's Award for Literature to John Tranter for Urban Myths: 210 Poems: New and Selected which also took out the John Bray Poetry Award. This is the first time that the Premier's Award for Literature has been given to a collection of poetry since its inception in 1996, and I congratulate John on his outstanding success.