Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Toulouse-Lautrec: Paris and the Moulin Rouge exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia had its well-attended parliamentary night last night. The exhibition contains more than 110 works from that brilliant French artist, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. The National Gallery of Australia is exhibiting a collection of his works from 32 galleries around the world, taking you on a journey through his career as an artist living in the hills of what was then an outer suburb of Paris, Montmartre, to the city.

The Lautrec exhibition has run from 14 December and will continue to 2 April. It is the first major retrospective exhibition devoted to the art—the paintings, drawings, posters and prints—of 19th century French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in Australia. Ron Radford AM, the Director of the National Gallery of Australia, is owed great credit for bringing these works together. It just shows you what a significant, important and thoughtful country Australia is if such a great French artist can be acknowledged through such a serious exhibition of his works.

Radford spoke eloquently last night to parliamentarians, giving us an insight into the commitment required to bring an exhibition of such magnitude to Australia. I want to thank personally Simon Elliott, the assistant director of curatorial services for the incredibly detailed explanation he gave to me while I was walking through the exhibition. It gave me an understanding of the many layers of Toulouse-Lautrec's work.

In Australia, we are very fortunate that we find ourselves able to view exhibitions such as this. It is through the efforts of the whole team at the National Gallery of Australia that all Australians are able to witness, in our national capital, this and many other exhibitions. The NGA has almost 800,000 visitors a year on average. It has more than 165,000 works in its collection, which is double the number of any state gallery collection, to the value of $4.7 billion. It is by far the most valuable art collection in Australia.

Its Masterpieces from Paris exhibition in 2010 broke the national record for art exhibition attendance, with nearly 500,000 people coming in four months. Indeed, the National Gallery can proudly claim five of the 15 best attended exhibitions in Australia. The gallery's range embraces all cultures and ages. Last year, 400 centuries of Indian painting jostled with Australia's own Fred Williams. Now Toulouse-Lautrec's sketches and posters of fin-de-siecle Paris sit side-by-side with the indigenous art of Vanuatu.

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec was born in 1864 and died, too early, just before his 37th birthday. In his brief life, he managed to capture the energy of a city at the dawn of modernity. There is a wonderful early, grainy, black-and-white film of Paris in those years that brings that home to you. His art married the high tradition of the European impressionists—although he was never exclusively in that school himself—with the gritty underbelly of Paris. He was enthralled by the demi-monde, the dives and haunts of the underworld, the cafe concerts, the masked balls, the dance halls and the bordellos of late 19th century Paris. The frissonbetween the men about town, who are portrayed there, and the desperate prostitutes of some of the bordellos was something that he really brought to life in his work.

According to the NGA booklet:

The exhibition will trace Toulouse-Lautrec's career from his earliest works to his extraordinary depictions of the Paris social scene, the dance halls, the cafe-concerts, the brothels and theatres. This he did in an insightful way, capturing the essence of his Parisian characters and haunts. Toulouse-Lautrec's subject matter was to become thoroughly modern and he became an influential figure in the evolution of the art of the twentieth century.

One of the things that all of us know implicitly, but do not say, is that of course Toulouse-Lautrec's poster art began that whole popular art medium. It is something imprinted in practically every westerner's mind. The booklet continues:

Toulouse-Lautrec will examine the artist's abilities as an acute observer of Parisian life, his skill as a draughtsman, his experimentation in composition and the brilliance of his technical execution in all media. The exhibition will shed new light on Toulouse-Lautrec through an examination of his involvement in Parisian culture—the high life and the low life.

I congratulate NGA chairman, Alan Myers, and all involved in the National Gallery of Australia on their continuing representation of high culture in Australia and their great work on behalf of the national capital.

Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Bundaberg fishing industry has faced one obstacle after another over the years. Many have left the industry in the wake of restrictions over fishing areas. You will all be familiar with the Fisheries (East Coast Trawl) Management Plan, which reduced trawlers from 750 to 500, and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Representative Areas Program. But following this year's record flood, which reached 9.5 metres—an all-time record—the district's fishermen are again on their knees. The Burnett River itself was scoured out, which created new channels, sand ridges and sand bars. Walls in the town were severely damaged or washed away; a trawler fuel facility was also washed away. A privately owned major storage facility and cold rooms were severely damaged, and the owners are not likely to resume operations at a level that could service the 21 trawlers that used it in the past. This means that the district's fishermen are in desperate need of a common storage and cold room facility.

It is my belief that this facility would be well suited to a location at Burnett Heads, at the mouth of the Burnett River, where flooding is less intense during times of severe weather conditions. I am proposing that the state and federal governments contribute toward a common-user facility to consolidate the industry and save the livelihoods of district fishers and the region's fishing industry. This was once a very proud industry which had, at its peak, 106 trawlers and, for many years, a stable fleet of 80 trawlers. It is now down to somewhere between 20 and 30 trawlers, and the industry will not remain stable if the ship's chandlers and shipwrights, diesel engineers, radio engineers and the like leave the town for want of work. This is a critical time for the industry, and the thing that would bind it together is a common-user facility. I propose that such a facility be managed by a cooperative of fishermen and service other fishermen who come up and down the coast—who come into, for example, Bundaberg at scallop time and have their catches treated at the port there.

I have had several meetings with the fishermen to discuss the issue, as I have with Mr Crean in his capacity as the regional development minister. Last Saturday morning I met with Premier Newman. He has an open mind to something of the nature of a common-user facility, and I intend to take the matter up with him further. When we get our figures firmed up I will also involve minister Ludwig, who has been designated the federal minister in charge of the events resulting from the recent floods. He has a very good knowledge of Queensland, particularly the coast from Gladstone down to Tin Can Bay, so I am sure he will be helpful.

This is a very important time for the livelihoods of many people. The fisherman's art goes back in human history even to biblical times. Fishermen are part of the lifeblood of the community. They hand their trawlers and their boats on to their sons and grandsons. Fishing is an important part of the fabric of primary industries communities such as Bundaberg. Given, too, that Gladstone has suffered problems with the quality of fish stocks, the southern part of the Barrier Reef fishery is in great trouble. I call on the federal ministers, the state ministers, the local authority and the port authority to come together to create a new, common-user facility both for storage and for freezing and perhaps, in time, for the processing of fish in the Bundaberg district. It is a very important venture, and I hope they will treat it with both compassion and generosity.