Multicultural Arts Victoria (MAV) was established in 1973, initially under the name of Festival of All Nations. Its original objective was to provide a forum for ethnic groups to express and share their heritage and cultural traditions beyond their ethnic community. Gradually, the organisation, in addition to celebrating cultural diversity, embraced and to the needs of newer immigrant artists, writers, dancers, musicians, actors and craft practitioners.
MAV began to provide information, resources, and assistance to enable them to settle successfully in their Victoria, and to sustain and grow their artistic and cultural practices. In the early 1970s – when the policy of multiculturalism was born – arts and cultural celebrations were the best tools available to urge respect for diversity, integrate migrants, and foster social cohesion.
While there were several cultural celebrations prior to 1973, they tended to focus on single ethnic community audiences. They did not encourage participation by other ethnic groups or the broader Australian community.
By 1973, the White Australia policy had been dismantled, assimilation began to be questioned and the term “multiculturalism” emerged as a new way of settlement and integration of migrants and refugees. It began to be recognised and accepted that migrants helped to build this country industrially, and contributed to making our life more diverse, interesting, vibrant, and fulfilling.
Al Grasby, the Minister for Immigration in the Gough Whitlam led Labor government circulated a reference paper titled, ‘A multicultural society for the future’. The landmark document laid the foundations for major initiatives, at government and community levels. Immigrant groups were gradually supported by all governments to sustain their cultures and languages, to help them settle successfully and thus enrich and benefit all Australian society.
A key reason multiculturalism became a government priority was its bipartisan support by Labor and the Coalition. An early key player reinforcing and encouraging this social policy was Professor Jerzy Zubrzycki who led the Immigration Advisory Council and provided advice to the Whitlam Labor Government.
In 1977 the Australian Ethnic Affairs Council recommended to the Malcolm Fraser’s Liberal Government to support the policy of multiculturalism in a report entitled Australia as a multicultural society. In 1978, Frank Galbally’s landmark report ‘Migrant Services and Program’s was officially presented in 8 languages and accepted in federal parliament.
A year later the Australian Institute of Multicultural Affairs was established, with Petro Georgiou as its CEO.
In later years we saw the establishment of other related bodies such as the Bureau of Immigration, Population and Multicultural Affairs, the Office of Multicultural Affairs in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and of course the Special Broadcasting Service in 1980 with SBS Radio preceding it in 1975.
Over the last 50 years there have been various advisory councils, papers, reports, legislative changes, research, and reforms that demonstrate that governments on both sides of politics, have felt some uncertainty on how to manage multiculturalism. The term multiculturalism itself has been defined, redefined, misinterpreted, even abandoned by some key politicians. Currently, in terms of structures, only SBS and the states’ multicultural commissions remain relatively unchanged.
Multicultural Arts Victoria has survived for 50 years, it has grown, it strengthened. It has been flexible, and always changed to keep up with the times, and provide relevant services to Australia’s culturally diverse communities and their artists. However, MAVs success is anchored to foundational policies and programs born in the early 1970s. Its value is not restricted to the thousands of artists it has served over the last five decades. It lay claim to being the first multicultural arts organisation, supporting and promoting multiculturalism, before the term became Australia’s official policy.
Multicultural Arts Victoria’s significance was recognised in the third year of its existence, when at the multicultural dinner of the 1975 celebrations prime minister Gough Whitlam, Victorian premier Rupert Hamer, as well as the ministers for immigration and foreign affairs attended the Festival of All Nations gala at Fitzroy Town Hall. It was the first time a prime minister had visited the Fitzroy Town Hall, and in his honour the Fitzroy Council named the adjacent park Whitlam Place.
A quote from the 1978 program’s president’s message indicates our passion and vision.
“This year the Festival of All Nations is celebrating its sixth anniversary. Few of the founders envisaged such a rapid and successful development. Once again, we will have the opportunity to marvel at our differences, to delight in the range of talent and variety of tradition with which this country is blessed. It is our right and, at the same time, our responsibility to exalt and experience these traditions, for they are derived from the most cherished cultures from all over the globe. We are dedicated in the preservation and fostering of ethnic cultures for future generations, because we believe that this will enrich our lives and will assist in the development of a heritage which will combine the best that the world has to offer”.
So, with humility, and immense pride I today I accept the Life Membership of Multicultural Arts Victoria for founding the organisation 50 years ago, and serving as its founding chair for over a decade. MAV, (Festival of all Nations) was the first, and largest multicultural arts community organisation in Australia, established initially with no financial support.
This was a time when there was real opposition and genuine confusion over multiculturalism. MAV had to encourage ethnic communities to change their attitudes by opening their cultural traditions and welcoming others, by convincing the wider community to explore and support cross-cultural practice, and by providing training to boost improvements in the quality of cultural presentations to engage a wider audience.
I am proud that at a young age I dared embrace these challenges and with many enthusiastic volunteers, succeeded in gaining modest grants from government and the private sector, in attracting support from all political parties and realising the success of that initiative.
Let me relay an image of the times. There were hardly any ethnic restaurants in Fitzroy, it was MAV’s multicultural restaurant at the festival, at the lower Fitzroy Town Hall where a queue of hundreds waited to taste the culinary diversity brought to Australia by our new settlers.
Many things have changed, but what hasn’t changed is the fact that access and equity for all, by eliminating discrimination, and promoting harmony and social inclusion have been essential in creating a contemporary and diverse Australia. The gel of that success is found in the intangible cultural heritages, the arts, both traditional and contemporary, and the diverse foodways that MAV, as the Festival of All Nations, first presented.
