Page 1729 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 13 May 2015
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The launch of the Canberra region brand is a good step forward and something I certainly support. The development of a single brand for our region gives us a platform on which to promote our products and services to potential visitors and investors. The partnership between the ACT government and surrounding councils will no doubt bring new collaborations and opportunities. One of the things I am particularly interested in is the opportunity to promote our Canberra region produce. For our future food security we need to develop our region’s food production, and there is a growing understanding within the community of the value of locally produced food. This is one of the things raised with me at a roundtable on food production in the ACT that I hosted as the ACT minister for primary industries. To pardon a terrible pun, there is a real appetite by consumers to know where their food is coming from, and the Canberra region brand provides a way to develop the regional market.
I am keen for our local producers to define very clearly that their produce comes from our region. I think there are real opportunities for the food and wine industry more broadly to develop this niche in the tourism market. It is certainly an area identified in the report produced by Tourism Research Australia as needing development. Having something like a Canberra brand that we can apply to our local food produce was an idea put forward to me at that food roundtable, and through the partnership with the regional councils we are starting to get towards that place. There is a bit more work to do there, but it presents an opportunity.
As Mr Barr notes in his amendment, the government has supported a number of big ticket events in the last year which have attracted visitors to our city, including, of course, Floriade. Enlighten is growing in its reputation and the crowds each year are increasing. It is very pleasing to see so many out having a good time. We have had the blockbuster exhibitions, the T20 cricket big bash final, the cricket world cup matches and, of course, the Asian Cup football matches. This is quite a diverse list. I cannot imagine that the people coming to Floriade were necessarily the same people we saw at the Iran-Iraq quarterfinal at Bruce stadium. We see different activities or different options appealing to different sectors of the tourism market, and that is part of broadening our city’s image as well—having people who perhaps would not otherwise visit coming for events for a particular reason. They then get to discover all the many other attractions and tourism opportunities Canberra has.
Many factors determine visitation rates and it would be remiss not to mention the fiscal situation at a commonwealth level, where tightening federal budgets have certainly had an impact on the number of people coming to Canberra—in the business space particularly. That plays out for our local business and tourism sectors as well. I have been clear in putting on the public record my support for a new convention centre. I think it would be an important asset for our city to drive business tourism. That is why there is an item in the parliamentary agreement to progress this.
Progress is being made and we are getting very close to the point where we need to find a serious commitment to investment in that project. That will need to be a partnership that involves the ACT government, the federal government and the private sector. All of us need to work together on this project. I see universal support for it in
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