Wednesday, 21 June 2023

 Chris COUZENS (Geelong) (10:15): I recently joined the Premier on a tour of the biggest and greatest regional arts centre in the country and to announce that the new Geelong Arts Centre will open on Saturday 19 August, with a long-awaited festival to follow. The completion of the $140 million Little Malop Street redevelopment will mark the most ambitious stage of the Geelong Arts Centre’s transformation, following the Labor government’s $38.5 million Ryrie Street redevelopment completed in 2019. I want to take the opportunity to acknowledge and thank the CEO Joel McGuinness and the board for their tireless work during this project and also the current minister and the previous minister, the Assistant Treasurer, who is sitting at the table today, who really made a great commitment to that redevelopment.

The Geelong Arts Centre will now amplify the voices of the local First Nations community with the Wadawurrung artist Kait James and local First Nations artists Tarryn Love, Gerard Black and Mick Ryan to showcase First Nations stories throughout the centre. Each of the building’s four levels evokes a different Wadawurrung creation narrative, with earth and ochre country expressed at ground level, ascending to moonah forest country, sky country and night sky on level 4. It is telling the story of Djilang and of the profound traditions of performance on the Wadawurrung site for thousands of years. It is a celebration of everything that Geelong is.