Page 4749 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 20 October 2010
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grown into Australia’s premier celebration of spring. We hope that through the investment and the work that we are doing in the autumn period we will have an event that in 20 years time will be as strong a tourism drawcard for Canberra in autumn as Floriade is now. But it will take time, it will take patience and it will take a constructive working relationship with all parties in this place to ensure that that autumn event reaches that level. I think that is a very important distinction to draw.
There has been some criticism as to why I did not undertake particular media commitments in relation to this report. It is a whole-of-government matter and I am responsible for two events out of hundreds. It is not about tourism events; it is about all events. There is an opportunity through this report for a clearer delineation in terms of how government operates to structurally separate major events that have tourism potential from community-based events. That will be an important forum. I am happy to be on the record as saying that is what I will be arguing for. That is the position that I have adopted in my conversations with Mr Loxton. You will see that a number of his recommendations appear to reflect that particular view, so I am pleased that it was picked up by the reviewer in his considerations.
I want to respond to a couple of comments Mr Rattenbury made, most particularly around the centenary and the strategic plan for Australian Capital Tourism. I note his concern about Australian Capital Tourism’s second phase of its five-year strategic plan having an international focus and that that would be during the centenary year. The reason for that, Mr Rattenbury, is that the airport goes international in that period. We will have direct flights. We are very optimistic and very confident that we will have direct flights into Canberra from New Zealand and possibly also Singapore or Hong Kong. With that opportunity, with the airport going international, I think it is a once in 50 or once in a 100-year opportunity for this city to take advantage of direct flights in.
That is why Australian Capital Tourism’s focus, once the airport redevelopment is complete, will be to look at those international markets. There may indeed be new markets that will open up for us with direct flights and hence it makes sense to be focusing our efforts there. We will, of course, have a fantastic year of activities and events in that initial period when the airport goes international. We will have a magnificent program to offer visitors both domestically and internationally at that time. The challenge is to build on some of the new events that will be run for the first time either in the lead-up to the centenary or in the centenary year and create some legacies out of that.
The Loxton review provides, I think, some useful guidance in terms of a seasonal approach. We continue to work in partnership with the national institutions, most particularly the National Gallery, around the summer content, given the success of the Masterpieces from Paris exhibition.
In light of some of the decisions that I have had to take as tourism minister in relation to cutting funding from underperforming tourism events, it is interesting to contrast the returns. With the V8 supercar race there was something like $18 million worth of losses to Canberra ratepayers. It was described as an open-ended agreement with private promoters which placed all financial liability on the ACT taxpayer. No risk
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