Govt funds Mardi Gras
The NSW Government will help fund the annual Mardi Gras festival.
After years of trying, New Mardi Gras signed a funding deal with Events NSW securing funding for next year’s parade and festival.
The exact funding amount is unknown, but Sydney Star Observer understands it is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Mardi Gras injects an estimated $30 million into the NSW economy each year.
New Mardi Gras Chair David Imrie said the funding decision served as official recognition of the vital role the event plays in the NSW economy.
It is fantastic, for both the organisation and the entire GLBT community to receive such massive recognition, finally, from the state of NSW, Imrie told Sydney Star Observer.
New Mardi Gras and Events NSW will work together to encourage greater national and international participation in the parade by developing new marketing strategies through Tourism NSW. There are also plans to secure broadcast coverage of the event again.
Events NSW chief executive Geoff Parmenter said the funding would solidify Mardi Gras as a world-class event.
Events NSW have a real interest in ensuring this iconic event continues to thrive with an enduring and sustainable business model, Parmenter said.
New Mardi Gras general manager Anna McInerney said the decision was the result of two years of negotiations.
It’s been a long and bumpy road at times, but our goal has finally been achieved, so on both a personal and a professional level it’s an enormous accomplishment, she said.
The funding allows us to build a sustainable, long-term arts and cultural festival and reinforce our position as the premier gay and lesbian festival so that anyone who is gay, or not, would want to come to Sydney at least once in their life to experience it.
The funding comes six years after the government turned its back on Mardi Gras as it fell into receivership.
It was only saved thanks to the generous support of a number of organisations including ACON, the NSW Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby, Queer Screen, Pride and the Sydney Star Observer.
ACON CEO Stevie Clayton welcomed the news but said it would be important that the festival did not lose touch with its grassroots.
Money to support Mardi Gras is good news. Should be end of story…but some of these bloggers are so entrenched in their victimhood, they HAVE to find the bad news angle.
So $300,000 is just another reason for these bitter queens to complain…about Mardi Gras, about religion, about the money itself.
Thanks for the misery guys, but I prefer my world a happier place.
Piers Akerman is so desperate to hit deadline with enough words that he doesn’t care who he hurts while he draws strange arguments together. The way he wrote his article you would think Mardi Gras had earned itself a few million (or more!) from the state government. The Daily Tele certainly plays its card both ways by pandering to the homophobes one day then writing an article “of interest to the gay community” the next (Mardi Gras to take on country towns) so I guess you could conclude that the newspaper is full of cheap whores who will do anything for a buck / click.
What a great idea, David; Please, please, please New Mardi Gras, do not give any complimentary tickets of any sort to Daily Terror readers….
Bravo Mardi Gras + The Guv
Another way of looking at it. A few years back, BRW did the hard work of estimating the revenue of Australia’s main religions. The Catholic Church earned the bulk of the more than $23b in revenue earned by the ten largest religious groups – $16.25b. At the same growth rate identified by Ferguson, this would be $20.47b in 2008. If even just 5% of that revenue was profit, that’s more than $300m that the Catholic Church will avoid this year in company tax alone. BRW estimated that the Church had more than $100b in assets, the bulk of which would be property -“ which would mean several hundred million dollars more in land tax that state governments are missing out on.
That’s a pretty fair reward for the medievalist champions of homophobia, misogyny and paedophilia.
So it’s a bit rich (no pun) for them to bitch about the few crumbs that get thrown our way.
This is a measley and condescending sum from entrenched homophobes, except for the important symbolism of recognition at last. Sadly, it comes at a time when young gays are almost totally disenfranchised from any semblance of the very movement that brought MG about. Worse, for those of us who survived the halcyon seventies and beyond, ‘gay’ in Sydney has never been so boring!
Wow, what a lot of bitching and moaning about getting support from the state Labor Government.
Awww now Chris, we are a diverse but inclusive community – and Ollie always provides some much needed light relief. :)
A rule of thumb is…on any issue ,take the exact opposite of Olivers opinion and there would be 100 %certainty you would have the correct and most sensible position .
Perhaps, Phil Scott, the measly couple of hundred thou. for NMG would be better used to top up the $18 million that Brethren schools get ($2 mill. from the state) to train more homophobic writers for the Telegraph.
Yes, but would the money go to hospitals, infrastructure, etc? Or would they spend it on more rev-head events and useless tunnels? People use the “better spent elsewhere” argument without considering whether the money actually would be better spent. By this Government? I doubt it. So let’s not look a gay gift horse in the mouth.
Symbolically, the legitimacy Government funding brings to Mardi Gras does us all a favour. And we will still “own” it, unless there are strings attached to the funding that I don’t know about.
Geoffrey – I totally agree.
James – Wise words.
“Piers Akerman: Why should tax payers struggle to pay mortgages while semi naked homosexuals dance on floats?”
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24434051-5001021,00.html
The Daily Telegraph is well known for homophobic beat ups to sell more papers (they see us as a real little football to kick around), and to gain more internet traffic to thier website stories for advertisers. (remember the beat ups over anti-homophobia training in schools with the hysteria “forcing” Carmel Tebbutt to withdraw the program, and remember thier beat up on Marrickville Public school (in the heart of gayopolis) about the book that showed two Mums.)
Instead of saying that the govt is supporting Mardi Gras to ensure it continues to draw in much needed tourist dollars to the entire NSW ecomomy, for restuarants, hotels, shops, and flow on effects to other towns outside Sydney as the tourists linger & continue their stay… the Daily Telegraph have beat up the story to get readers angry & reading, to gain extra internet traffic/newspaper sales for today for them.
Please please please, don’t go onto news.com.au (go onto smh), and don’t ever buy the Telegraph! And: NMG board- please please don’t send any free tickets to the Telegraph reporters for this year’s event.
Geoffrey, Thankyou! You couldnt have said it any better! Theres more important places the money can go to!!!
If the taxpayer funds the event then it is no longer “owned” by the gay community. Be careful what you wish for.
As a gay man I think that the State Government funding this is misguided. The money would be better off being spent that would help the collective of society.If we are to look around us and see beyond our own needs, infrastructure needs, hospital needs, public transport, public education are all areas that need this government’s attention.
Interestingly three random strangers in places I’ve been today (who don’t know that I’m gay) have said they are p*ssed about this.
I guess the timing of the announcement following on from the V8 super cars one for Homebush Bay could’ve have been better.
Glad the new Premier doesn’t have the squeamishness of his predecessors.
CONGRATULATION to all involved in making this happen!! It’s about time…
Ceriously about time the State Government if not the Federal Government started to drop in a few coins to help it out.
It’s also about time Mardi Gras got back to basics started to represent the total community and not just a few who choose to use it as a political statement. Which is why we have not marched recently.
It is about time the NSW Government recognised the significant impact Mardi Gras has on the state’s economy and the massive tourist drawcard it is.
Perhaps now Mardi Gras will evolve from a great even half the world attends, to a truly global event everyone wants to come to.