Country Arts SA

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (14:26): My question is to the Minister for Arts. What is the government doing to assist the State Opera of SA to travel to regional areas? With your leave, Mr Speaker, and the leave of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr McBRIDE: The State Opera would like to travel to the Limestone Coast to put on performances, including at the World Heritage listed Naracoorte Caves. In other states, dedicated touring funding is available to help and support the delivery of such programs; however, this isn't the case in South Australia.

The Hon. A. MICHAELS (Enfield—Minister for Small and Family Business, Minister for Consumer and Business Affairs, Minister for Arts) (14:27): I want to thank the member for MacKillop not only for his question but he has been a strong advocate for getting our arts and cultural organisations into our regions, and he has advocated quite strongly on a number of occasions to me so I appreciate that.

What we did announce in the budget was $19 million for a hub for Country Arts, the State Theatre and State Opera. One of the benefits that will come from that is actually having Country Arts work much more closely with the State Theatre and State Opera. Having those organisations work together really does support having those organisations tour into regional South Australia. They already do it quite well, but that additional funding will help with that.

I don't know if the member managed to see The Frog Prince last month that was performed on the Limestone Coast. That was a State Opera tour that went through the Limestone Coast, particularly to students there, and I want to thank the Minister for Education who helped with a grant program to fund that. Not only did they get to enjoy The Frog Prince performance, but State Opera actually undertook some workshops with students to give them some career guidance on getting into performing arts, which I think they really enjoyed. That was a really important part of what Country Arts and State Opera do.

At the moment Country Arts, State Opera and Creative Australia are working on a program for a shared producer that will work into the regions. We are expecting that to be finalised and commence in 2025. That will also help Regional Arts as well. Of course, that all feeds into the 50-year anniversary for State Opera, which is in 2026, so again some positive steps in that regard. There has been significant touring of our incredible performances throughout regional South Australia. We have had Symphonie of the Bicycle, which was a State Theatre production that toured regional South Australia. We are about to have Saltbush Country, which is a Country Arts exhibition of First Nations female artists, incredible artists. It starts in Port Lincoln but is travelling around the state. It was part of Tarnanthi last year. We are getting a whole range of performances out through our regions.

Yesterday, I had one of my regular meetings with State Opera's Mark Taylor, who is the Chief Executive of State Opera. He is really keen to see an expanded audience for opera. At the moment, he is working on the Opera in the Pub program, which has started here in Adelaide. We actually did talk yesterday about the possibility of extending that into regional pubs as well to expand the audience base of opera. So there's a lot happening in that space. I again thank the member for his advocacy and I look forward to seeing him out in the regions for some of these incredible performances.