Cringe moments and stunned pollies: What you missed at the Festival City ADL breakfast
This week, InSider watches an SA festival industry leader go out in a blaze of glory over breakfast.
InSider loves the Festival City ADL policy breakfast.
The food’s not too bad, the company’s alright, but InSider mostly likes it because we get an InDaily story out of it.
For two years in a row now, the brekky has drawn headlines.
There must be something in the coffee…
Last year, attendees got scolded by none other than Premier Peter Malinauskas, who loudly rejected the “outrageous” claim that he cares more about sport than arts.
Thanks for that speech, Peter.
This year, perhaps more scandalously, the outgoing boss of the organisation left a trail of fire in her wake.
Justyna Jochym – who is set to take up the top job at the SA History Trust – took aim at the industry which she thinks would rather litigate internal beef than do anything about the failing grassroots segment of the sector.
She made plenty of good points that had InSider smiling not just because we were getting good grabs, but because much of what she said was what the grassroots industry was saying already.
The 20-minute, passionate speech set the room on fire. You could hear a pin drop and all eyes were turned to Jochym, either in fear or in admiration.
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When she finished, the applause was thunderous and continual. InSider goes to a lot of these breakfasts and this never, ever happens. Everyone’s still waking up usually. Her speech was like a cold bucket of water: shocking, but effective.
You can read more about the contents of the speech on InDaily. It’s what happened after that InSider is more concerned with.
Up after Jochym was Federal Senator Don Farrell – the Minister for Trade and Tourism.
“I’m not sure how you follow an address like that one,” he said.
“I’m not going to follow my prepared notes because I don’t think that would be appropriate in the circumstances. But thank you, Justyna, for that heartfelt and honest assessment of what’s going on with the festivals in this country.”
It was obvious to InSider that Farrell was not impressed that he was not properly briefed about Jochym’s speech.
It got weird though. Without a script Farrell was a bit… well… off-script, and in welcoming Senator Sarah Hanson-Young the Greens politician copped a stray.
“Sarah Hanson-Young and I are very good friends, and congratulations on your recent re-election,” he said.
“Bad luck about losing all of those Green Senators, but there we go, that’s politics at the moment.”
In InSider’s recording, Farrell was the only one in the room laughing at that joke. Everyone else just muttered to each other.
“I can say that to Sarah without any repercussions,” he said.
Can you??
And then, instead of addressing anything of what Jocham raised, he went on to say that, no, things are good now, actually. Just check out the Coober Pedy Opal Festival! It’s thriving!
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Oh, and also: if we get COP31 (if the key word here) wouldn’t that be great!?
“I am really optimistic about the future,” he said.
Farrell was followed by a more professional address by Andrew Giles, Federal Minister for Skills and Training.
He focused on the skills challenge and how he wanted to work with the state and organisations like Festival City ADL on how that piece could be solved.
But his big take away: active listening is key.
“The skills challenge is not the answer to every one of our national problems, it’s part of the answer, and getting to that requires much more active listening on the part of governments,” he said.
“With that in mind, my undertaking is to listen carefully to the panel that will follow, to engage more deeply with this industry.”
He did stick around for the following panel which featured SA Arts Minister Andrea Michaels and SA Trade and Investment Minister Joe Szakacs, but notably dashed off before the industry panel which featured six industry leaders.
I guess the SA Skills Commissioner Cameron Baker isn’t worth listening to, hey Giles. We’re sure that they meet regularly outside of the Adelaide Oval, but optics seemed more important than ever after the Jocham grenade.
Jochym – or JJ according to Michaels – got a lot of love from the Arts Minister.
She said JJ’s speech was “one of the best” addresses she’s heard recently. Again, high praise because Michaels definitely attends more of these breakfasts than even InSider, and InSider loves a free brekky.
Michaels also said in her speech that she related heavily to the themes of JJ’s address, especially in the context of crafting the new arts and cultural policy for the state.
Coordinating different parts of the government is hard, said Michaels (or should we call her Mikky? (JJ if you’re reading this, what’s her nickname!).
In any case, there’s lots to consider. But if you ask InSider, InDaily and CityMag have been saying for months, maybe over a year now, that grassroots festivals are either, dead, dying, or writing their last will and testament.
Maybe a public fire-based baptism will cause the industry to change.
Or maybe not.
