Select Committee on Local and Live Creative Venues

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (12:06): With great pleasure, I bring up the report of the committee, together with the minutes of proceedings and evidence. While I am on my feet, I want to say a few words of thanks to those members of the committee who participated in this particular select committee: the Hon. Reggie Martin, the Hon. Frank Pangallo and the Hon. Ben Hood. I must say it has been the most pleasurable committee to have ever been a member of in my time in this parliament, and that time has been quite an extensive one so far.

We have agreed on recommendations to ensure the protection of grassroots music venues under our liquor licensing legislation and that other protections be afforded. We know, of course, that the Crown and Anchor and the saving the Crown and Anchor campaign led to what was a really interesting debate in this state about the importance of live music, the importance of iconic venues and the importance of grassroots venues.

This report comes together to try to ensure that we do not get to a situation where we are about to lose more iconic venues. We know that we have lost far too many live music venues in this state. This report recommends that there be an investigation of community right-to-buy legislation, should we ever face another situation such as that of losing a grassroots venue where the community might be able to pull together to ensure that we keep live music local and live in this state.

The state government also has been encouraged to support a model that has been very successful in the UK and to support the newly established Australian Music Venue Foundation. That is based on a voluntary ticketing donation to be made at point of sale or by the artists encouraging it themselves that goes back into local grassroots live venues. Both of those schemes work in the UK, and they could very much work here in South Australia.

Another recommendation we have made is that the state government investigate what they are now looking at in Tasmania—after the last Tasmanian election—where the Rockcliff government promised to establish something called TasInsure and to look at the chokehold that the monopolies in insurance currently have on industries like the live music industry. Venues are unable to get insurance, and they are priced out of the market because the market is rigged against them. We encourage the Malinauskas government to look at the benefits for live music and other vulnerable sectors of having that state-led insurance option to break the monopoly.

We also recommend increasing what was first established by then minister Diana Laidlaw back in the day of taking the pokies money and quarantining it for live music. When that was first done, under Liberal minister Di Laidlaw, it was an amount of $500,000. In 2013, I was proud to have played a role in lifting that amount up to $850,000, which is what it should have been in 2013 had the CPI index been followed each year.

We have again seen that fund sit dormant and static, so this report recommends that the CPI increases be respected and that we have an immediate injection of live music money from pokies money of $1.3 million each year, and then it continues to be indexed annually, so that we are not having to come back here and reinvent the wheel.

The report also recommends that we look at the mental health benefits of creative venues and live music in our state. We know that we have had the COVID crisis that is creating not only a mental health crisis—indeed, it is the tsunami of a mental health crisis after the earthquake of COVID—but we have loneliness in our society. Ways to tackle that can indeed not just see music as therapy but live music as a remedy, and we recommend that there be mental health grants for the promotion of live music and that they be based on a mental health criteria, not an artistic criteria. Such fantastic projects such as The Jam, The Mix, The Gig have been lost over time because of a lack of focus on the importance of things like music to mental health and strengthening our community.

We also recommend that a regular Premier's gig guide be published online and in print and that that be promoted to tourists and locals alike. It is an opportunity for venues to promote themselves, as well as new performers and established performers, to let people know when they are playing and where and to be a source of wisdom. We note that literally The Note magazine currently does run a gig guide. I know there is a lot of interest in the live music community of how this gig guide could work, but given we are a UNESCO City of Music we think a Premier's gig guide would actually be a really appropriate role for the Premier to take.

We also recognise that the lack of late-night public transport limits people's abilities to get out to a gig. They can probably get there, but they cannot easily get home. We want to see that addressed as well. Victoria runs a fantastic program called FReeZA and has done for decades. It is now called Amplify. That is youth-led committees right across that state who get active and involved and do everything from on the stage through to the tech, through to the front of house, point of sale, and run these gigs, promote these gigs and get their community together and rally around. Something like FReeZA in South Australia, or Amplify as it now is, could go a long way to ensuring we have audience development, ensuring we have excellent youth opportunity and ensuring live music continues to live beyond the current generations.

There are other measures here that I think are incredibly important. Controversially, we have recommended that the late-night trading code of practice be replaced with a new safety strategy. I note the dissenting remarks in the report from the Hon. Reggie Martin on that; however, I think we would all agree that an independent review of the late-night trading code of practice be undertaken with a particular view for the harmful impact it has had on live music in this state, particularly unnecessary imposts and costs on the operations to comply with that code of practice that do not necessarily make anyone safer. They simply make it more expensive for those venues to operate when they are often quite small venues and are unable to—particularly with the costs of things like insurance—sustain these costs.

Today is AusMusic T-Shirt Day and I literally recognised that when I saw a few T-shirts online this morning. I had this Paul Kelly T-shirt in my cupboard from last year's AusMusic T-Shirt Day. I love this day. It is a day to celebrate live music in all its forms, but it is also a fundraiser for Support Act, which is a wonderful charity which supports musicians and those who have worked in the music industry when they fall on hard times and when they have mental health challenges. I think there could be no better day on which to table this report and I commend it to the council.

Report received and ordered to be published.