Barossa Vintage Festival

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (16:29): I rise today to talk about why my electorate is better than every single other one in this place. A couple of weeks ago we had a five-day festival in the Barossa called the Barossa Vintage Festival, which is the greatest celebration of everything that is Barossan, and this year's program was no exception. It is a festival that dates back to 1947 when the Barossa community would come together and celebrate the end of grape harvest and vintage. Frustratingly for many this year, with the late summer rains and the cooler temperatures, vintage was still well underway when the vintage festival was held.

The vintage festival is the longest running wine tourism event in Australia, and it has always been a celebration by Barossans for Barossans where we invite the rest of the world to come and celebrate with us. The festival aims to showcase the best of our food and wine and certainly our people. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Barossa come alive with the wide range of events that were held over that period. There were 90 events in the 2017 program, and more than a third of them were free.

There were the traditional events, such as the Wine Chapters Auction and Lunch (both of which I attended), the Ziegenmarkt, long lunches, town celebrations and, of course, the Barossa scarecrows. I was a bit upset that Mr Schubert's scarecrow in front of the Schubert electorate office received only two votes in the local poll, but congratulations to Lyndoch on their winning entry, which was about 10 or 12-feet tall. It was yarn bombed and resplendent, keeping watch over the Lyndoch township.

There were some successful new events this year, including the Chook Shed Social Club, the Silver Raven Festival, the Feast, Folk and Fossick—which I did get along to on the Sunday afternoon—and the Punkt zu Punkt, which is a 33-kilometre hill-climbing trail run through riesling country, which also took place on the Sunday. I know a number of people who got involved with it, and I really do not understand why they did. It was a punishing journey, and I hope they downed a decent glass of Eden Valley riesling afterwards.

The pinnacle of the event is always the vintage festival parade, which was on the Saturday morning, and over 100 floats represented various aspects of the Barossa. There were 1,200 participants who travelled along the Barossa Valley Way between Tanunda and Nuriootpa. Interestingly, that walk is somewhere between eight to 10 kilometres, and people line the entire length of the parade. In times gone by, wineries would pour wine to open, willing glasses on the side of the parade but, unfortunately, due to occupational health and safety regulations those fantastic days are long past.

This event more than any other highlights the tightly bound social fabric that makes the Barossa such a beautiful and enjoyable place to visit, and I want to put on the record my sincere congratulations to the Angaston town float that depicted the mural that exists on the side of the local Foodland. Angaston, which in my view is the best town in the Barossa, won the best float in the parade, and congratulations to everyone involved in that. I am sure I am going to receive some nasty correspondence from the residents of Tanunda and Nuriootpa.

The festival highlights how important the Barossa is to our state. It is estimated that somewhere around 50,000 people came to visit in the Barossa. The fact that this festival has been going for 70 years is a real testament to the strength of the social fabric and community of the valley and the fact that everybody gets involved to pitch in. Each individual event is organised by different groups within the valley, but the program this year was coordinated by Tourism Barossa, which is a great local organisation. I really want to pay tribute to its chairman, Mr Chris Pfeiffer, who I know got along to more events than I did, and to his board—but very specifically to the staff.

Andrew Dundon came on for the previous festival, but then had the proper two years to plan this year. Andrew, together with Cathy Wills, who is the CEO of tourism, Taryn Wills and Jess Greatwich, who went off prior to the festival starting to have her second child, did such a fantastic job. Andrew's vision, and his desire to try new and different things while keeping the heritage, was fantastic. I am so privileged to represent this area because it celebrates what is best about the Barossa and what is best about South Australia, and I look forward to inviting along members of parliament in two years' time.