It gave me great pleasure to read the comments made by Tourism Minister Francis Zammit Dimech during his speech to launch the Maltese-Australian Cultural Week 2007. It was very heartening to hear him praise those who have the Maltese culture at heart.

He especially mentioned, among others, the programme Waltzing Matilda that has helped immensely to foster relations between the two countries. However, the last few remarks by the Minister indicated that more aggressive promotion is needed. I would say “there’s many a slip b’ween the cup and the lip” as promotion as I know it leaves much to be desired.

As a member of the Maltese Television Consortium Inc. (Victoria, Australia) I say that while there may be some promotion consisting mainly of some leaflets obtainable from the various consulates, good and aggressive publicity is very hard to come by.

The inception of this consortium was motivated by the desire to promote the real need of the Maltese community in Victoria to participate in something with real Maltese culture and flavour, hence the birth of the screening of the very popular TVM programme, Waltzing Matilda that went on air, here in Melbourne, for the first time, in October 2002. It is interesting to know that current surveys show that the programme is seen by some 20,000 to 30,000 viewers. It is most essential to point out that all this would not have been possible if it was not for the cooperation and permission of the PBS, the Broadcasting Authority and the extremely hard work of Mr and Mrs Harry and Josephine Zammit Cordina.

Now Channel 31 here. I must emphasise that it is no CNN, that rather, it is a community channel and that it does not produce any of its own productions; however it has a cumulative reach of 1,343,000 viewers. The Maltese Consortium was welcomed as a member and it is only obliged to pay a nominal annual subscription for the Waltzing Matilda programme to be shown on a fortnightly basis.

And here I must mention the excellent work done by our executive coordinator Joe Montebello. He is not only the official supplier of films that are taken from time to time here in Victoria but also acts as liaison between those in Malta and Channel 31. This entails a lot of time, effort and expense, but the satisfaction from all this work is expressed by the programme being shown on time and enjoyed by the community. Again, I emphasise that the cooperation and permission given by PBS, the Malta Tourism Authority, and Josephine and Harry Zammit Cordina mean that all this a coordinated effort.

Waltzing Matilda proved to be so successful and the work of the Maltese Consortium so appreciated, that the Channel 31 offered us another half-hour fortnightly programme on a series called One World. As expected we welcomed this fine gesture with open arms, however the calibre of other ethnic programs in this series proved to be a challenge to us. Once again we had to ask for assistance from local Maltese government representatives and also from Malta through the usual channels. With this help we have been able to begin, in 2005, to show some local productions (with thanks to their producers) and 30 documentaries that include some 39 episodes of Kurzità.

So as everyone can see, we are doing our utmost to promote Malta in the best way possible. We know, however that much, much more must be done to promote tourism to our dear island.

I must say that both Waltzing Matilda and One World – Malta are very well received by both the Maltese and other ethnic communities. This goes on to show that all this is achieved by hard work and determination but with very little financial outlay.

I agree with the minister that more aggressive action is needed and may I also humbly suggest that the Tourism Authority should be at the forefront of such promotional work. Yes, more needs to be done to attract more visitors from “down under”.

Frank Sargent

Victoria

Australia