By Goya Dmytryshchak
The Australia Day festival in Altona has been cancelled.
The annual event has been run by the Altona Village Traders Association for the past 11 years.
President Kim Walsh said the festival, which attracts up to 15,000 people, had grown too big for he and wife Sharon to host.
“We just don’t have the arms and legs on the ground to continue to do it, so it’s with a really sad heart,” he said.
“It has nothing to do with being politically correct, it’s just gotten too big.
“In a beautiful way, we have created a monster.”
The free day-long event has a junior triathlon, live entertainment, stalls, a sand castle competition, horse-drawn carriages, double decker bus tours and camel rides. It culminates with fireworks on the beach.
Mr Walsh said Hobsons Bay council had already allocated funding for next year’s Australia Day in Altona event, which would be redirected into smaller events throughout the year.
“What we’re doing to make up for it is, we are having a number of smaller events throughout the summer period,” he said.
“We’re going to have some twilight markets.
“The Altona traders are going to put on extra movie nights, which start earlier in the day for the kids.
“We’re looking at perhaps having a water slide brought in … a whole host of things.
“I would rather us do 10 smaller things than one Australia Day.
“It’s grown too big for us.
“And again, I’ve got to emphasise we’re not cancelling it because of anything to do with ‘Invasion Day’ or Greens policies or anything like that.
“I want to emphasise that it has nothing to do with political correctness.
“That played no part whatsoever in us deciding to have to cancel it.”
