PRIVATE MEMBER'S STATEMENT
Ausmusic T-Shirt Day
Mr MELLISH (Aspley—ALP) (2.44 pm): Ausmusic T-Shirt Day is an initiative of Support Act and is on tomorrow, 16 November. Support Act is a registered charity founded in 1997 by the music industry for the music industry. It was established in recognition that a career in music brings its own unique rewards and challenges. Since it was founded in 1997, Support Act has helped many people working in the music industry with a variety of issues. As it describes it, it has supported people in the industry in paying rent, kept the power on, repaired instruments, provided petrol, bought school uniforms and brought comfort and dignity to many people in their final stages of life.
The music industry can be very tough. For 99 per cent of people working in it, it is a constant slog of touring, travel, cheap and nasty accommodation and long periods away from home. It would have to be one of the least stable and most stressful industries out there despite the stereotypical sex, drugs and roll and rock image that many people may have. Support Act has helped get artists and music workers back on their feet when they have hit a rough patch. Tomorrow, Ausmusic T-Shirt Day, is the culmination of one of its major annual fundraising activities run in conjunction with Triple J and ARIA. Tomorrow is a nationwide celebration of Australian music that reminds us how lucky we are to have such a strong local music scene with some of the world’s best artists coming out of our own back yard, and particularly out of Brisbane of course.
The idea of the day is to show your support by wearing your favourite Australian music T-shirt. There are also specially commissioned music T-shirts being sold by Levi’s stores, with all proceeds going to benefit Support Act. Over 60 companies in the Australian music industry have pledged support for Ausmusic T-Shirt Day and are helping to raise funds. Last year I think I wore either a Frenzal Rhomb or a Violent Soho shirt. I have plenty to choose from, but I reckon tomorrow I will be wearing one of my WAAX T-shirts—a great Brisbane band, a hardworking band on the up and up who are also great people.
The Australian music scene is going from strength to strength, particularly the Brisbane music scene. The recent focus on the Brisbane music scene from the Guardian website was a timely recognition and chance to reflect on the scene and how it has grown and changed since the seventies and eighties when the underground music scene was largely catalysed as a protest to the Bjelke-Petersen government of the day.
Tonight live music venue The Triffid will also announce the latest winner of its Brisbane Album of the Year Award, earning a permanent place on its wall, which is fast becoming a Brisbane landmark. Melbourne can keep its Instagram friendly laneways and terrible weather and Sydney can keep its soulless CBD and overcompensating inner west. For me the Brisbane music scene is the most collegiate, organic, unique, and just the most fun in Australia. In 1985 Paul Kelly famously caught a 13-hour bus from St Kilda to Kings Cross and then somewhat regretted it later. I think his real mistake was not staying on the bus until it got to Brisbane. In closing, I encourage everyone to get involved in Ausmusic T-shirt Day tomorrow in support of our vibrant local music industry.