T RANSCRIPT

ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE Inquiry into heritage tourism and ecotourism in

Halls Gap — 18 March 2014

Members

Mr T. Bull Mr J. Pandazopoulos Ms J. Duncan Ms L. Wreford Mr D. Koch

Chair: Mr D. Koch Deputy Chair: Mr J. Pandazopoulos

Staff

Executive Officer: Dr G. Gardiner Research Officer: Dr K. Butler

Witness

Mr J. Nolan, Director, Economic and Community, Northern Shire Council.

18 March 2014 Environment and Natural Resources Committee 335 The DEPUTY CHAIR — I welcome Jim Nolan, director of infrastructure and tourism, from the Northern Grampians Shire Council. As a formality, Jim, all evidence taken at this hearing is protected by parliamentary privilege as provided by the Constitution Act 1975 and is further subject to provisions of the Parliamentary Committees Act 2003. Any comments you make outside the hearing will not be afforded such privilege. All evidence given today is being recorded, and, as a witness, you will be provided with a proof version of the transcript with instructions within the next couple of weeks. We thank you very much for joining with us and have allocated up to half an hour for your presentation and questions and answers, so over to you.

Mr NOLAN — Thank you very much for the opportunity, Chair. Just to make a correction to my title in the first instance, I am the director of economic and community at Northern Grampians Shire.

The DEPUTY CHAIR — We will correct the record.

Mr NOLAN — Titles change from time to time. Thank you for the opportunity to present. I have got a small slideshow, which really just presents some talking points. I will proceed through this.

Overheads shown.

Mr NOLAN — The tourism sector contributes about $78 million in output to the Northern Grampians shire and employs around 472 people. This is as at the start of this year. These figures are taken from a program, REMPLAN, which council subscribes to, which identifies in this case that tourism is the fifth largest sector from the point of view of employment and the fourth largest sector in terms of output. I have some copies of both the employment and output data, so there are two separate reports.

From a Northern Grampians point of view, that is significant. In the regional context it was reported in the Grampians Tourism submission as an output of $224 million for the Grampians tourism region, which comprises the five councils that make up the Grampians Tourism Board. Essentially the tourism sector comprises a range of retail, accommodation, attractions, and a number of other specific enterprises. In relation to the council’s investment in tourism, Northern Grampians Shire Council is one of the small rural councils in Victoria. It is effectively a financially unsustainable council because of the large infrastructure assets it is responsible for and council’s limited ability to raise revenue with its current rate base. There has been a range of documentation that can support that, but effectively council sees that it is important to make a contribution to tourism because of the contribution it makes to the local economy.

The council is a member of Grampians Tourism — one of the five councils — and with other partners. Council operates visitor information centres at Halls Gap, St Arnaud and Stawell. It supports tourism associations and local tourism enterprises. Council’s operating budget for tourism is in the order of $400 000 a year. For some that might seem a small amount of money; for a small rural council it is a considerable amount of money. Council’s ability to continue to provide that level of support to the sector is an ongoing concern to the council. Council is investigating ways in which it can continue to provide support for the sector with the amount of money that it actually has.

Council also contributes capital investment into projects which support the sector in Halls Gap. Recently we constructed a visitor information centre, which is a fabulous building within the heart of Halls Gap. We are in the process of constructing a community hub adjoining the visitor information centre, which we expect will generate a significant amount of life into the heart of Halls Gap and contribute to the overall product that Halls Gap has to offer. Whilst the hub project at this point in time is a $1.75 million build, with the construction of the visitor information centre that occurred a couple of years ago it is well in excess of $2 million. It is a project that was made possible with council, state and commonwealth contributions. Nevertheless I guess it was a significant contribution from local government.

Council has also developed a tourism sector plan, and I will provide a copy of the sector plan in the attachments for you. This is simply a copy of it, and this is a document that council engaged consultants to prepare in 2010. It provides some direction for the council in terms of how it supports the sector and how it assists in growing and attracting investment. In addition to those things, council provides a number of other services that support the sector in broad terms. We have an events assistance program and an events coordinator, which is a significant contribution to the tourism market.

18 March 2014 Environment and Natural Resources Committee 336 I will speak briefly about nature-based tourism in the Grampians, and I do not purport to be an expert in this area. Council is a member of Grampians Tourism. We have a very active partnership with Grampians Tourism, and there are a number of projects that Grampians Tourism is pursuing. Council supports the strategic plan of Grampians Tourism, and a number of those projects include the peaks trail, the destination management plan and the digital strategy, as well as their marketing focus. The Instagrampians example is a good example of their marketing initiative. We are very pleased to be working with Grampians Tourism. We think they have made a significant contribution to the industry here. The stats from Tourism Research recently showed that Grampians Tourism is having an impact in the region and increasing overnight stays and visitors to the region. That information is available on the Grampians Tourism website. There are copies there if you would like to refer to those, but I do not propose to speak any further to that.

I will speak a little bit about the destination management plan because that is a significant project that Grampians Tourism has on its plate at the moment. Council is currently part of the project control group for that plan. That plan identifies a number of opportunities and gaps in tourism, and we expect that will speak directly to the terms of reference for this committee. The destination management plan seeks to ultimately attract increased investment in tourism in the region, and that is based on evidence supported by significant research about the market.

On heritage tourism I will speak briefly about the Goldfields — Australia’s Premier Heritage Region project. I am not sure if you have been introduced to this, but this is collateral information that relates to the project. This project was initiated a couple of years ago. Essentially the purpose of this project was to preserve and protect heritage assets within the region. The region comprises 13 local governments within central Victoria and part of the objective is to ‘treasure the best of the golden past’, building on our historical links with the goldfields. It aims to stimulate growth in townships and villages across the region. It requires capital investment, both public and private, and research into this project identified that there are significant economic benefits to be obtained from it. One body of research identified that in the long term it has the capacity to build 9000 jobs, so it is not a small project. I guess we can talk about the barriers to implementation and buy-in. But it is certainly a significant project that was initiated but is having some difficulty gaining traction, so I just put that there for you as the example.

The DEPUTY CHAIR — Why would that be? What are the difficulties in getting traction?

Mr NOLAN — I do not propose to be an expert on the project itself. I was one of the 13 councils shown on the screen there that were members of it. The project requires significant capital investment — both public and private. Public investment was identified — there were a number of opportunities to improve access to our heritage assets and improve those heritage assets to make them attractive for visitors. There have been great applications made. I know the Northern Grampians shire made an application to the commonwealth through the RDAF 4 program, which was unsuccessful. Had that been successful, that may have been a catalyst to stimulate further investment from the private sector. My understanding and expectation of the project is that if there is public investment in these assets — and many of the heritage assets are public assets — then that would provide incentive for private investors to make a contribution to improve the product as well.

Capital investment is one thing. I think obviously buy-in is another. Where there is a large region like that it is often difficult to get all of the partners on board with the same project and the same priorities. It is a truly regional project, and yet it required 13 bodies which all report to elected representatives to share a similar vision. Not all the councils would do that, given that you have elected members turning over every four years. It is another contribution to what might be seen as a barrier to moving that project forward.

The DEPUTY CHAIR — Who was the strategy funded by — this plan?

Mr NOLAN — I think it actually raises the — —

The DEPUTY CHAIR — We will find it. I will just read through it anyway.

Mr NOLAN — I will take that on notice and get back to you with that.

The DEPUTY CHAIR — Yes, if you do not mind, and we will have a look at as well. Thanks.

18 March 2014 Environment and Natural Resources Committee 337 Mr NOLAN — There are two more localised examples in the Northern Grampians shire that I will speak to. St Arnaud has heritage assets attracting private investment. In the case of St Arnaud, it is the historic hotel project. St Arnaud is a town with a significant mining and gold heritage history, and the streetscape is quite an attractive heritage streetscape. There are many old buildings that are in private hands and are underutilised, and some of them are closed. A significant investor has now purchased two of those hotels and is looking to renovate and create a gallery, studio, accommodation and fine dining. They see that there is a long-term return, and part of what attracted that investor to St Arnaud was the historical context.

Since that initiative council has undertaken a precinct plan for St Arnaud which looks at the historic precinct and how council can encourage and support further investment and improvement in the product in the historical township. This plan is principally built on identifying and maximising the benefits from the historic assets that are in the town. At this point in time, that document has not been launched, so it is not in the public domain, but I am happy to provide a copy to the committee if that were suitable.

The DEPUTY CHAIR — If you do not mind, yes.

Mr NOLAN — I will provide that because it is a really good example of how heritage is a significant asset of those towns and it is what might be the catalyst for towns to actually be able to survive and to grow.

I mentioned Great Western as well. The council is in the process of developing a similar-type plan called a future plan for the development of Great Western, developing a theme around the heritage wine village and the significant historic, iconic wineries that exist in Great Western. That is a product which supports the broader Grampians region as well. Council sees its role as assisting the community to leverage off those historic assets. In this particular case those assets are in private ownership, so I guess there is a challenge about how council can support those private operators to continue to maintain and develop those assets and make them available to attract tourism to the region. There are significant costs associated with that.

In the case of Best’s wines, they have historic cellars there. The township of Great Western is soon to be bypassed. That is subject to funding of the bypass project, but the alignment for the bypass has been determined through an EES process. Best’s wines are concerned about how that might impact on their throughput through their cellar doors. We are working both with VicRoads, Best’s wines and the general community about how to get a good outcome there, but being able to support local operators and local owners of these heritage assets is considered to be an important issue.

As far as the slideshow is concerned, that is as far as I have presented. I have a couple of other points to make in respect of building on the Grampians tourism destination management plan project. A significant finding from that project is that Halls Gap as a tourist resort town needs to be revived. Council has established a project control group to steer that. Council is seeking funding to develop a master plan with a view to developing a strategy to attracting both public and private investment.

In terms of encouraging private investment a barrier there appears to be return on investment — return on investment being a long-term objective and operators not being prepared to invest where their returns are over such a long period. This is where I think to stimulate activity in Halls Gap it is necessary for a partnership approach where broader benefits to the region that do not necessarily translate to returns to the private operator — those broader returns could be used to develop a business case to demonstrate why public investment is appropriate in these circumstances. Council is working with Regional Development Victoria and private operators in Halls Gap to look at opportunities for private-public partnerships to attract investment. Our first step, however, is to develop a master plan so that it is all clear about what the long-term vision is for Halls Gap. It is quite significant from the point of view that the evidence from the destination management plan that Grampians Tourism are undertaking suggests that the revitalisation of Halls Gap is critical to tourism in the Grampians.

From a Grampians point of view, building resilience is considered to be a barrier at this point in time. Natural disasters have a significant impact. The flood event in the Northern Grampians had a $30 million impact on the community. It was principally funded through the state and federal governments for the recovery from an infrastructure and social recovery point of view. Then on the back of that there has been a recent fire which has also impacted on tourism locally. We are still coming to terms with what is the actual impact of that natural

18 March 2014 Environment and Natural Resources Committee 338 event. I guess the key point to be made here is that there is a need in these natural environments to create or build resilience in the community.

The next barrier identified is regulation and red tape. Council is very supportive of the initiative of the state government to reduce red tape and is very keen to identify opportunities for that to occur. Council is conscious that regulation can be a reason why investment may or may not happen. Whilst there is a place for regulation and a need to have appropriate controls to protect the natural environment from development and for other purposes, there is a significant way to go in terms of controlling the regulation and red tape that sits around opportunities for private investment.

The third barrier I believe is infrastructure. I spoke about council’s investment in some of the public infrastructure in Halls Gap, for example, and similar levels of investment in other towns — Stawell and St Arnaud. There are other levels of infrastructure that council has little control over. I just refer to the telecommunications infrastructure as being a current barrier in parts of the Northern Grampians shire, particularly in and around the Grampians.

I guess another thing that I put as a barrier but that is also an opportunity is the partnerships. I spoke about the public-partnership approach to stimulating investment. On a more regional and local level, it is becoming more important. I spoke about the partnership with Grampians Tourism and the opportunities that we are investigating there to look at how the Grampians can be better marketed and the objectives of the strategic plan may be better met through closer ties with various stakeholders. There are opportunities to do things better there. With that, I will leave it and open it to questions.

Ms DUNCAN — Thanks for that, Jim. What do you see as best practice development in national parks. Is there anywhere around the world where you see a good example of that?

Mr NOLAN — I think some of the things that are happening in the Grampians may well be considered best practice. The work that Parks Victoria were doing in their flood recovery program in restoring public tracks and trails with a view to developing design guidelines for the restoration of those assets showed a lot of initiative and represents excellent practice. I am probably not qualified to speak about others.

The DEPUTY CHAIR — Will from Grampians Tourism referred to the positioning of Halls Gap as a resort town, probably from his Falls Creek background, and David from Parks Victoria was highlighting to us yesterday during inspections of the camping area in the middle of town whether that is the best use of Crown land or whether it should be located on private land behind facilities like this. I acknowledge that you have not done the master plan, but do you have some comments or views about that — that is, being able to find sites that add extra value and what that might actually be, noting that there is a lot of heritage and history, even among members of the committee, of people who have camped in that area in their younger days?

Mr NOLAN — Yes. I would like to think that as part of the master planning project those sorts of options could be explored. There are a number of constraints on development in and around Halls Gap because of regulation and provision around fire and flood and preserving the natural environment as well. I think there are areas of public land which may be more suitable for commercial-type development and other areas of perhaps fire or flood-prone land that might be more suitable as public spaces. I think there is an opportunity to explore some options there. We have established a local project control group to investigate some of those options to inform the master plan, but currently there are certainly a number of constraints on development because council has no control over much of the public land that is available.

Council is not the committee of management for much of the public land in Halls Gap, so that requires a partnership approach with the local committee and the Crown. From the point of view of commercial land there is a limited number of landowners who require to come on board to look at a long-term vision for Halls Gap. That needs to be in terms that are acceptable and attractive to those private owners. I think all those things can be explored. We have some very active members of our local PCG who are keen to explore opportunities to relocate some public assets and uses to other sites that are more appropriate.

The DEPUTY CHAIR — You said the council is a member of Grampians Tourism. Are you also a member of Goldfields tourism for your northern end?

18 March 2014 Environment and Natural Resources Committee 339 Mr NOLAN — No, we are not a member of Goldfields tourism as a tourism association. We are just party to the region for that specific project.

The DEPUTY CHAIR — We have had a transition from the Grampians campaign committee to the board of Grampians Tourism. How is that evolving? Do you think that setting up the board structure versus being a campaign committee focusing just on running campaigns for the region is starting to work, or do you think the old way was better?

Mr NOLAN — My observation is that it has been considerably better. We certainly have established a very productive working relationship with Grampians Tourism. Grampians Tourism provide routine reports and information to our council and will take on board feedback from our council — from our elected reps. They have actually got a number of runs on the board, and they are taking the initiative. I think they are looking more broadly at how they might be able to improve the total tourism product, I guess, in the region.

The fact is that Grampians Tourism is looking towards other models about how they might operate in the future, given that the current board is reliant heavily on contributions from local government members and from Tourism Victoria. So other business models to make Grampians Tourism more sustainable in the long term are a positive initiative. They are investigating some of those, but in terms of effectiveness I think they have been excellent. Councils participate in a review of their performance on an annual basis, which is part of our memorandum of understanding, and the performance to date has been very good, so I think the transition has been a very positive one.

The DEPUTY CHAIR — Do you as a council have any relationship with Heritage Victoria?

Mr NOLAN — Council engages a heritage adviser to advise about various aspects relating to heritage assets in the shire, and that heritage adviser is funded in the main by Heritage Victoria. That is a positive relationship. We have enjoyed that support for a number of years now, and the heritage adviser actually provides a valuable contribution.

The DEPUTY CHAIR — One of the reasons I am asking is that I am wondering whether there is a broader role for Heritage Victoria. We had them present to us at the last public hearing in , and, just in the way that all government works, everyone is getting shrunk — parks, tourism and heritage as well — so their core responsibility is their legislative responsibility around place protection. I wonder whether there is a role for them to be doing things like this in terms of the overarching, broader role tourism has. Tourism encompasses a whole lot of different sectors within a tourism envelope. Heritage encompasses a whole lot of sectors, but heritage is very narrowed down, so they cannot necessarily put a case to government that there should be world heritage sites. They will only respond once government makes a policy decision. Do you think there needs to be a broader role of Heritage Victoria to be able to, on its own initiative, pursue the heritage agenda on behalf of Victoria, above and beyond protection and advice about heritage buildings?

Mr NOLAN — I think there will be. As an observation, council does deal with different parts of the state government, some which involve statutory and regulatory compliance and others which develop policy and look at broader objectives. It is often necessary for those two arms of government to come together to provide a better outcome in certain circumstances. In the case of heritage I think there would be some benefits in having regulation and policy under one banner that could look to achieve broader outcomes. I think that would be refreshing from council’s point of view.

The DEPUTY CHAIR — So you would see that as beneficial because it allows that linkage from local towns — local communities — to some broader strategy rather than towns feeling like they are isolated, on their own and that there is a common picture but that no-one is really running on it because it needs to be at a different level.

Mr NOLAN — That sort of support and initiative would be welcome. Council is very much left to its own devices in terms of trying to stimulate activity in small towns. I mentioned St Arnaud and Great Western too. It would be quite possible for council to sit back and allow those towns to develop themselves, and that might happen, but having a coordinated approach on a regional basis or state basis, with some support to initiate those sorts of projects, I think would be beneficial.

18 March 2014 Environment and Natural Resources Committee 340 The DEPUTY CHAIR — Jim, thanks very much for that. As we said, a transcript of the evidence will be forwarded to you in the next couple of weeks, with some instructions. Thank you very much.

Mr NOLAN — Thank you.

Witness withdrew.

18 March 2014 Environment and Natural Resources Committee 341