MS TIERNEY (Western Victoria—Minister for Training and Skills, Minister for Higher Education) (10:19): 2020 was a tough year for our music industry, with many festivals and programs disrupted. In January I was pleased to be able to tell some of my constituents that they had received a really significant boost of over $155 000 for local music initiatives. The Victorian music industry recovery program will distribute $3 million in grants for projects right across the state. Play On Presents, Port Fairy, received $45 000 for Uncle Archie’s Kitchen Table. This is a great concept, where emerging Aboriginal and Torres Strait songwriters and musicians will be invited to yarn with our award-winning musician Archie Roach and share stories of song, community and language.
The iconic Port Fairy Folk Festival, in an autumn concert series, will have nearly $35 000 to deliver three hybrid concerts promoting folk, country and blues music this year. Close to the Otways, Bambra’s Meadow music festival 2021 received $38 000 to develop a virtual live-stream festival for an online audience, alongside the physical festival.
Richard Frankland is both a filmmaker and a musician with an Indigenous focus, and this funding will support the development and production of a new multi-genre album, with songs covering stories and issues from pre-European arrival to contemporary times in English and Gunditjmara language. Backing our music industry is crucial to reviving venues and events and valuing the workers, artists and businesses that create the vibrant arts culture that we are so proud of in Victoria but especially Western Victoria.