Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Under normal circumstances, my electorate of Maribyrnong plays host to some world-class events. But COVID-19 has changed all of this. It remains to be seen what sorts of crowds, if any, will be permitted for the Melbourne Cup in my electorate and, indeed, the Cox Plate at Moonee Valley. The race which stops the nation on the first Tuesday in November, held at Flemington Racecourse, will confront a set of circumstances that it has not experienced before. Because of COVID the Royal Melbourne Show, which is again located in my electorate, was cancelled outright this year, as were so many other annual shows around Australia. There are the big ones—the Royal Easter Show in Sydney, the Ekka in Brisbane—but there are so many other shows around the nation that are the lifeblood of towns and communities, from Central Queensland to coastal New South Wales.

With the cancellations come serious challenges for those whose livelihoods are involved in bringing the magic and fun of a carnival and a show to a town, be it big or small. I speak, of course, of the travelling showmen and showwomen of Australia. I have had a fair bit to do with the Showmen's Guild over the years. The Victorian Showmen's Guild is based in my electorate. I was able to assist them with their School for Travelling Show Children some years ago. I was touched by their gratitude for what we did. They made me a life member of the travelling showmen's guild of Australia. Travelling showpeople are the salt of Australia. They are salt-of-the-earth Australians who work hard. They love their families. They run family businesses. They vigorously value their independence, and they seek to make their own living and pay their own way. Some of the show business families of the travelling showmen's guild have been in the same families for five or six generations. They're exactly the sorts of Australians to whom governments at all levels should be giving a helping hand in these tough times, because they are the people who turn up in tough times for so many of our communities.

I am grateful to members of parliament on all sides, including Nationals members who have taken an interest in meeting with the showmen. I have been trying to draw attention to their plight because their businesses travel between states. I thank the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia and the minister for agriculture, as well as state ministers in Victoria and Queensland—Ministers Carroll, Pakula, Dick and Bailey—amongst others. But progress is still very slow. Travelling showmen, rodeos and circuses face a litany of issues. The showmen pay crippling fees on the registration of the vehicles they use. They are charged registration as if they are truck drivers on the road every day. They are struggling to get insurers to underwrite their public event insurance, their public liability insurance. Travelling showmen will have difficulty getting engineers to inspect— (Time expired)