Indigenous culture at Melbourne Airport

 

MS PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (19:27:02):

My adjournment matter tonight is for the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events, and the action I am seeking is for the minister to investigate having a greater presence of Indigenous culture at Melbourne’s Tullamarine airport.

Like many others, we travel in and out of that airport; we come through it hundreds of times. We know that literally millions of people visit our airport every year and hundreds of thousands visit every week.

But I have noticed as I have been coming in that there really is not a mark of our Indigenous culture at our airport. There might be a small Wominjeka sign, but most of it is filled with Chanel and George Clooney—I do not mind George Clooney, but it is very international. There is nothing particularly Victorian and particularly nothing for our First Nations people.

I am sure many of you have visited Auckland airport, Wellington airport, Vancouver airport, Toronto airport where there is a strong presence and a strong recognition that those are the lands of their First Nations.

I think that when tourists visit our country and when tourists visit our city they should understand that. We should have our First Nations people front and centre when people come to visit and land at our airports. We know that our Indigenous culture is a major tourist draw card to this nation and this state.

The action I am seeking from the minister is to review the welcome signage that we see at Tullamarine airport and other tourist information outlets at Melbourne’s main airport and to let me know how we can further emphasise our Indigenous culture on arrival to Melbourne.

 

Fiona Patten MP
Leader of Reason
Member for Northern Metropolitan Region
Adjournment matter raised 6/6/19