PRIMINEI STE
CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERY
SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER
OPENING OF THE-AUSTRALIAN BALLET CENTRE
MELBOURNE 18 FEBRUARY 1988
It is a very great honor to be here to open the new
Australian Ballet Centre with my friend and colleague John
Cain. I was interested to note, when the invitation was extended
to me to be here today, that a Gala Performance of " Sleeping
Beauty" is to be staged later this evening.
It is of course a Ballet of great distinction, and I am
looking forward to what will I am sure be a performance of
excellence the kind of excellence and strength and
discipline that ballet audiences in Australia and around the
world have come to expect of the Australian Ballet Company.
I wondered however whether there was any significance
perhaps any compliment to my Government in the choice of a
ballet called " Sleeping Beauty".
I mean no disrespect to Tchaikovsky, but I wondered whether
his title " Sleeping Beauty" refers to the state of the
Australian nation before it was awakened, in the years
following the election of my Government, by our policies to
revive the economy, and reinvigorate the social and cultural
life of our nation including through our support for the
arts. But I realised that this was not an occasion for partisan
considerations. I finally realised that " Sleeping Beauty" must refer to this
part of Melbourne before it was revived and redeveloped into
an arts precinct of a concentration and quality unrivalled
in this country.
When we think back to the Yarra banks before the National
Gallery moved here and before the Arts Centre was built, we
realise that here was a site that indeed was a Sleeping
Beauty. 004471
With the Victorian College of the Arts and the Performing
Arts Museum and now the Australian Ballet Centre, that site
has been converted into a brilliant Arts City of
international stature.
This Centre will be the new home of the Australian Ballet
Foundation and the Australian Ballet School, as well as
providing office space for the Victorian Ministry for the
Arts. The Commonwealth Government, through the Bicentennial
Commemorative Program and through its annual subsidies to
the Foundation and the School, is pleased to have played its
part in funding and creating the new Centre.
I pay tribute to the Victorian Government and the Ballet
Centre itself for their efforts in raising the funds to
create the Centre.
I wish everyone involved in the Ballet Centre good luck in
their new home and that is a safe prediction because I
know the Australian Ballet will consolidate and build on its
already outstanding contribution to the cultural life of
Australia and of the world. 004472