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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-07-15 Daily Xml
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ARTS AND CULTURAL FESTIVALS

Ms CICCARELLO (Norwood) (14:40): My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier update the house on midyear arts and cultural activities?

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) (14:40): It would be nice to have had more notice of such a question. While the media likes to refer to March in Adelaide as 'Mad March', given the long list of activities on offer culminating at that time—and stretching Mad March back to the end of January, as people tend to, including the Tour Down Under, the Adelaide Film Festival, WOMADelaide, Adelaide Fringe, Clipsal 500, the Rugby Sevens, and, of course, every second year, the Adelaide Festival of Arts—they could just as easily dub our cooler months in Adelaide 'Wild Winter'—

The Hon. K.O. Foley: Wild Winter!

The Hon. M.D. RANN: —who wrote this—since there is plenty happening on the arts and cultural scene.

The 2009 Cabaret Festival wrapped up in late June. In its ninth year and with David Campbell now at the helm, this event once again achieved outstanding results, including over 48,000 attendances for ticketed and non-ticketed events. I take this opportunity (because bipartisanship is at my core) to praise Diana Laidlaw for what she did in terms of setting up the Cabaret Festival in South Australia.

The sales for ticketed events, which reached 36,000, represented 105 per cent of the budgeted target for this year, and were 17 per cent ahead of last year's ticketed attendance figures. These outstanding results are no doubt a reflection of David Campbell's high quality programming, which included a mix of international stars such as Bernadette Peters and John Bucchino, as well as a range of local and national artists—and wasn't it wonderful to see the Argentinian Paris-based singer Barbara Luna here at the event? This programming has earned more positive media coverage and is helping to raise the profile of the festival both nationally and internationally.

The biennial Festival of Ideas—and it was good to see the Leader of the Opposition, I think at one of her first functions, at the launch of the Festival of Ideas—

Mrs Redmond: Not my first function; my first function as leader.

The Hon. M.D. RANN: First function as leader, that is right; I knew you had been to functions before. It was great to see people such as Phillip Adams and other great thinkers. In fact, it was a room full of great thinkers—I think the Leader of the Opposition would agree with me on that—and when they turned out the lights there was a frisson of ideas.

The biennial Festival of Ideas, which aims to engage people in debates and inspire and enliven them through the ideas that are presented, ran over three days and three nights from 9 to 12 July. Since it was launched a decade ago, this event has addressed a variety of themes, including ethics, reconciliation, addiction and theology. This year, the theme was 'Pushing the limits'. It aimed to challenge us to consider how the global community might address situations where the limits may have already been pushed too far. It was great to see Islamic issues such as relations with the Islamic world and feminism in the Islamic world being addressed.

The Festival of Ideas program offered some of the most inquiring, fertile and inspiring minds from across the world. As with the Cabaret Festival, patrons came out in droves, in the depths of winter, for this event. Despite the cold and wet weekend, there was no decrease in the overall attendance figures, with around 30,000 attendances across 58 sessions presented. I understand that sessions are available as podcast downloads through the websites of the Adelaide Festival of Ideas and Radio National. Seventy five per cent of Festival of Ideas sessions were recorded for broadcast on ABC2's Fora program and 75 per cent of the sessions will be streamed through Australia's free internet TV channel, Slow TV.

The South Australian Living Artists Festival, commonly known as the SALA Festival—and I guess each year having contributed a work of art to the urban myth—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: SALA, not Salo.

The Hon. M.D. RANN: No, not Salo; that was a film that I think you banned. The SALA Festival will soon be upon us, running from 7 to 23 August. It will showcase works by over 1,000 South Australian visual artists at 250 participating venues across metro and regional venues.

I should mention this breaking news. From 3 to 17 October, we are in for a treat with what promises to be a fantastic third OzAsia Festival. If the pre-release shows, Bahok and Into the Fire,are an indication of the quality of the program, this promises to be an exciting two weeks. Of course, a couple of years ago former prime minister Bob Hawke was the keynote speaker, and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has also addressed an audience of over 1,100 people in the Festival Theatre—and we both spoke in Mandarin. I am looking forward to announcing the details of this year's keynote address speaker, who I think will attract a major crowd.

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