Q150 2009 Ideas Festival to unearth great ideas for the future

Arts Minister Rod Welford today announced leading human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson as a key speaker at the 2009 Ideas Festival.

Mr Welford said Peter Singer, regarded as Australia’s best known thinker, would also speak at a special pre-festival event on 5 February 2009.

“Peter Singer will give us a taste of some of the great ideas to emerge at the 2009 Ideas Festival (24 -29 March, 2009),” he said.

“The Ideas Festival, to be held at the State Library of Queensland and across the South Bank precinct, is the state’s foremost public vehicle to drive debate on the issues that shape our lives today and into the future.

“As well as hearing from great thinkers from around Australia and the world, it will gauge community opinion as we enter a time of great change and challenges.

“To meet and beat these challenges we need good ideas and practical ways to put them into action – ‘Ideas to Action’ is the motto for the Festival and I encourage people to take part in this process.”

More speakers will be announced in 2009 but those already confirmed were: technologist and innovator Helen Greiner, city futures planner Charles Landry and environmental activist Chris Jordan.

“The Ideas Festival will be an important contribution to the Q150 celebrations by helping us reflect on who we are and where we are going,” Mr Welford said.

“I have also declared 2009 the Year of Creativity, which will highlight opportunities for teachers to embed creativity in their teaching programs. The Ideas Festival will play a key role in lighting this creative spark through its schools program, Think Do Tank, a two-day program offering workshops, panels and hands on activities with strong links across the curriculum.”

Premier Anna Bligh said the 2009 Ideas Festival would be bigger and brighter than ever in Queensland’s 150^th anniversary year. 2009 marks Queensland’s 150^th year of separation from New South Wales.

“Queensland turns 150 years young, only once, and that means next year we have a golden opportunity to make an extra effort to showcase the brilliant ideas of some our brightest minds in what is also the Year of Creativity,” she said.

“The festival is an important part of the Q150 program for next year.

“Next year’s Q150 celebrations are all about our people, our places and our stories.

“It’s also very much about celebrating our achievements and shaping our future.

“The Government’s Toward Q2 initiative is about creating a smarter Queensland.

“What better place to start creating a vision for our future than in the minds and hearts of our youth through the Ideas Festival.

“I can’t wait to see the outcome.”

Ideas Festival 2009 director Michael Petersen said the festival was for the thinker and doer “in all of us”.

“I am looking forward to people pouring their own ideas into the festival,” he said. “The solutions and new ideas that will emerge will be tools for a richer life.”

Mr Welford thanked Griffith University and Brisbane Airport Corporation for their continued support of the Festival. For more information on Ideas Festival 2009 go to www.ideasfestival.com.au

Media contact: Marnie Stitz or Jo Crompton on 3237 1000