Page 2762 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 29 June 2010
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and I think self-evident in some ways that the ACT does not stand alone from our place as the national capital and, when it comes to tourism, we need a clear and strong relationship between Tourism ACT’s strategy and our national institutions. I think to some extent that does already happen.
Certainly, at some of the events I have been to with the Canberra Convention Bureau, working very closely with the national institutions as part of a package of bringing major business conferences to Canberra, those synergies are being developed. I think some of that is a little individual based, people working very well together—and that is to be welcomed—but it is also a pointer to needing not to be complacent and ensuring that we maintain those linkages in the future.
That brings me to the final point I want to touch on in tourism, the strategic relationship between tourism events and sport and recreation. This was touched on briefly in the estimates report. Again, we had an interesting discussion in the estimates process where one of the members of the committee, whose name escapes me now, asked about how Tourism ACT, the TVE section—
Mr Barr: Territory venues and events section.
MR RATTENBURY: The territory venues and events section of TAMS, thank you, Mr Barr, fitted together with—and this is where the coordination came from—the events section of the Chief Minister’s Department. It became quite clear that events in Chief Minister’s is much more about locally oriented events. So that moves out of the equation.
Again, the estimates discussion highlighted that quite a few of those arrangements operate on perhaps an individual’s expertise, their knowledge, their relationships with each other across government. I think that is a positive that we do not want to lose. At the same time, it is one that we need to be mindful of in the future so that, with those perhaps more informal relationships, if somebody moves on, we do not lose that strategic coordination.
We talked about events such as the mountain biking world championships which clearly are not only a sporting event run by TVE at Stromlo forest park but are also a major tourism drawcard. We could name a whole lot of others. Certainly, I am a fan of those kinds of events being brought to Canberra as a way of providing a tourism focus that reflects well on the city, takes advantage of Canberra’s natural assets as an open and healthy city and at the same time brings people to our city as tourists and brings money into the economy.
With those few comments, I think that overall tourism is going quite well in the ACT. It is clearly a vital part of our economy, although there are some challenges ahead. There are areas we need to be mindful of in the future and I look forward to continuing those discussions with various people involved in the industry.
MR BARR (Molonglo—Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Planning, Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation and Minister for Gaming and Racing) (5.09): I will be commenting, in part 1.4 relating to Chief Minister’s, on the
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