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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-05-12 Daily Xml
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Arts Sector

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (14:46): My question is to the Premier in his role as Minister for the Arts. When might South Australians interested in elite cultural pursuits be able to visit things like the Museum, the Art Gallery and the Centre of Democracy again?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:46): I thank the member for her question. Certainly the arts sector and the cultural sector here in Australia have been absolutely smashed by COVID-19. They have been sectors that have been hit from day one. Here in South Australia we have been really pleased to put our framework to return to a COVID-safe environment to the people of South Australia last Friday. It didn't provide relief to the arts sector or the cultural sector in terms of audience participation this month, but certainly from 8 June it is envisaged that we can start getting audiences back to our fabulous museums and galleries in South Australia, and also theatres and cinemas.

There are a couple of provisos on that: one, a maximum of 20 people and, secondly, abiding by all the social distancing and physical distancing norms and practices that I think most Australians are well aware of, in particular, one person per four square metres and 1.5-metre distances, where possible.

That is our starting point for 8 June, but I've got to say that we are sitting down with many of the galleries in South Australia and some will be absolutely delighted to bring back 20 patrons at a time, but for many others it would remain completely uneconomic for them to reopen. What we are doing is sitting down with these gallery managers, Museum managers and chief executives to look at what we can do to bring them back on line as soon as possible, but we've got to make sure that health is our highest priority.

I am very pleased with the innovative ways that the Museum, the gallery sectors and also theatres have thought about how they could social distance in a responsible way, how they have been able to identify what those risks are and put together programs that would help us to mitigate against those risks. I have been very pleased to be active with the sector during this period, not by visiting the museums, galleries and theatres, but with this newfangled technology of webinars. There are a number of different platforms and I pretty much messed up most of them to date, but it has been a very good opportunity to connect with different sectors.

One of the things I have been very, very impressed by is the way that this sector in particular has thought about how they can make the most out of a very difficult situation so they don't see this year as a completely wasted year, how they can work together in collaborations, how they can embrace technology and how they can actively engage in product development so that when it does become time for audiences to return they are ready to stand up.

I think, more than ever, Australia and the people of South Australia are going to need the creative sector and the arts sector to help us get through this period and to interpret some of the stresses that we have seen. I do want to commend the work that the Minister for Environment and Water has done on behalf of the cabinet with establishing a really innovative program around whole-of-person wellbeing at www.openyourworld.sa.gov.au. A big part of that is about how we interact with some of our cultural precincts and institutions in South Australia and the arts sector. It has been a tough year but, by working together, I think that we can get through and make ourselves stronger than before.

Ms BEDFORD: A supplementary, Mr Speaker.

The SPEAKER: I will take a supplementary, but before I do that I call the members for Playford, Badcoe and West Torrens to order and I warn the member for West Torrens. Member for Florey.

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