Australia Day Festival 2022

MAYORAL candidate and South Ward festival goer Marija Vujcic says she will bring back the fireworks on Australia Day 2022.
It will be the first of many events she says she has planned to make Fremantle a festival city, starting with the establishment of a City of Festivals Board to collaborate with state government agencies, local businesses, professionals and talented artists and entrepreneurs.
Cr Vujcic said local businesses and traders in the fishing boat harbour this week supported her Australia Day Festival as a way to encourage more people to visit and live and work in the city.
She told Freo StreetWise the Australia Day Festival could attract up to 50,000 people over the weekend and generate millions of dollars worth of business.
This comes on the back of Cr Vujcic’s highly successful Festival of Lights in South Fremantle in November 2020 when more than 20,000 people attended the biggest festival events since ‘Highway to Hell’.
The City of Fremantle moved its annual Australia Day celebrations to another day in 2017 and pulled its funding for the fireworks display at Bathers Beach.
Cr Vujcic said this divided and cost the city dearly and marginalised those businesses which normally would stay open and hire staff for the biggest cultural celebration on the Australian calendar.
She said the WA Premier is optimistic the state in the next few months will be largely COVID-free and ready for a celebration.
“Festivals are about colour, music, dance and celebration,” she said in a statement released to media today. “Let’s celebrate our inclusion and diversity like no other City. We have it all, heritage, rail, bus, located river and sea, food, hospitality and art.”
Cr Vujcic said ratepayers will benefit from the positive cash flow and council will have more to spend on basic services.
“Our festival future will reinvigorate Fremantle and this energy will attract more people to live, work and enjoy our beautiful heritage city,” she said.