NSW: Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras to use Government House

AAP General News (Australia)
12-15-2000
NSW: Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras to use Government House

By Jim Baynes

SYDNEY, Dec 15 AAP - A bastion of the Sydney establishment, Government House, is to
open its doors to the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival next year.

But that does not mean there will be drag queens traipsing through the historic halls.

Rather, the grand house overlooking Sydney Harbour will be playing host to a series
of classical concerts that form part of next year's festival program.

Even so, it was still a political statement, organisers said at the festival launch today.

"Indeed. I think it is (a political statement). It's an inclusive statement that basically
says that when Sydney Gay and Mardi Gras hits in February and March we take over the whole
of Sydney and there's no place that we shouldn't be," said festival director David Fenton.

"Government House is the perfect place to demonstrate our high art."

Meanwhile, organisers are predicting an even slicker production this year of the festival's
flamboyant highlight, the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade.

Mr Fenton not only expects 650,000 spectators to turn out for the parade on March 3,
but said the festival would match last year's $99 million injection into the local economy.

"And that just doesn't go to the economy but it goes back to the artists ... and that's
just as important," he said.

With 200 floats, the parade would be slightly smaller than last year's, but it would
not be short on political satire, Mardi Gras president Julie Regan told AAP.

Ms Regan was tight-lipped about which politicians would be lampooned.

"There'll be quite a lot of political statement in there but I can't give it away," she said.

Last year it was cash-for-comment broadcasters John Laws and Alan Jones and Daily Telegraph
columnist Piers Akerman (Akerman) who copped the biggest serve from float designers.

While Ms Regan said there had been many political issues confronting the homosexual
community over the past year, she admitted it would be tough to beat the gruesome "Bloody
Marys" protest against the GST on tampons.

"That was a pretty controversial little parade entry last year. I was at a Gay and
Lesbian Conference in Atlanta and people were going:`What was that!'"

"It's a pretty imaginative community," she said.

And just in case we run out of homegrown politicians to satirise, last year's Monica
Lewinsky floats could be replaced by an equally unpresidential controversy.

"Last year we had Monica Lewinsky in drag, so there'll probably be some comment about
the democratic process (in the United States)."

Calling for "legislative equality and social acceptance" and commemorating the lives
lost to HIV/AIDS, the festival starts on February 9.

Government House was used by the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras for a music performance
in 1999.

AAP jwb/sb/jas/br

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