CORRECTED VERSION RURAL AND REGIONAL COMMITTEE Inquiry into rural and regional tourism Geelong — 12 September 2007 Members Ms. K. Darveniza Mr R. Northe Mr D. Drum Ms G. Tierney Ms W. Lovell Mr J. Vogels Ms K. Marshall Chair: Mr D. Drum Deputy Chair: Ms G. Tierney Staff Executive Officer: Ms L. Topic Research Officer: Dr C. Hercus Witness Mr J. Cousins, chair, Committee for Geelong. 12 September 2007 Rural and Regional Committee 1 The CHAIR — We would like to welcome Jim Cousins to give evidence to the Rural and Regional Committee’s inquiry into rural and regional tourism. All evidence given here today is covered by parliamentary privilege, but any evidence that is given outside this hearing is not covered by parliamentary privilege. Before you start, if you could give us your full name and address and also the name of the organisation which you are representing. Then it is over to you. If you could possibly leave 10 minutes at the end for some questions, that would be appreciated. Mr COUSINS — Jim Cousins, [detail removed], and I am chairman of the Committee for Geelong. The CHAIR — Thank you, over to you. Mr COUSINS — I must apologise for Peter Dorling who is laid very low. I have to stand in for him. I must say that he wrote the submission to you so I think it is probably best if I say I agree entirely with what he has written for a start — — Ms DARVENIZA — Sounds safe. Mr COUSINS — And just briefly outline my views to you and then ask you to question me. I think that is probably the better way to go. As with lots of economies, tourism is one of the major features of this area, and a growing area. I have spoken at a number of functions in the last few days relating to what is about to happen in Geelong and surroundings. The people who will live for the next 30 years will enjoy the greatest ride in history, and part of that will be driven by tourism. The most important thing is that you look ahead and you plan the correct vision for this tourism. It really revolves around access to the area. We appeared before the Eddington inquiry here last week and it became quite evident that rail, road and Avalon are the most important components to deliver people to this area. As with all sorts of things, what happens is there are the constraints on the planning and the development of those areas and that is really the basis for the, I suppose, inactivity we have seen over the last decade or two. I think most of the tourism that has happened here has happened almost despite itself, except for the two major events that we have here, which are the airshow and Skandia. I think that also points to an inequity that the regional areas suffer in that they have had a lot to do with major events in Victoria. I think there is an inequity in the way that the funding is delivered to those major events. In terms of the per capita benefits derived for Victoria out of the two major events in Geelong, I think they more than outweigh the comparable events that are attracted to the city of Melbourne. I think there needs to be a review of the way that money is handed out to regional Victoria because in terms of the number of people who come into this area it is probably the greatest percentage of tourists that go into Victoria as a whole. I think well over 1 million people go down the Great Ocean Road now, which is a very significant figure in terms of tourism to this state. It is how to grow that. Obviously with the ring-road this will increase significantly, but the problem with the ring-road at the moment will be the access back into Melbourne or out of Melbourne when that road starts to operate. There is no way places like the West Gate Bridge are going to cope with it. For those of us who have to go to Melbourne almost daily, the journey is almost impossible at peak hour. In fact I go up the night before now, if I have early meetings, because I just cannot go through the nonsense that we have to go through. So there is no way you can grow tourism into this area without looking for alternative modes of transport. That is one area. I think we do have significant areas of winegrowing, apart from the surfing industry. Looking at the surfing industry, we from the committee who deal with major business all the time can actually report that a number of the major surfing outlets have had to relocate because they could not grow their businesses in this area, because they were not allowed, through the planning system, to grow. Also I think in the wine industry it has been very difficult for many of the growers to expand their activities in terms of tourism, and that is because of the planning system again. That is a brief outline of what is hampering tourism in this area, whereas it should be growing at a much faster rate, because we do have these natural elements that we are gifted with. I do not think I should go on, because I will probably just confuse the situation. It is probably better for you to ask me. The CHAIR — Thanks very much, Jim. In relation to the traffic, you say attempting to go up there on the morning of a meeting is a bit of a nonsense. Are you predominantly talking about once the traffic starts to congest around the West Gate Bridge? Mr VOGELS — About 20 kilometres this side of it. 12 September 2007 Rural and Regional Committee 2 Mr COUSINS — It is probably from Werribee onwards now, and a lot of that is created by the growth in the Werribee-Wyndham area. But it is not only the mornings or the evenings; you want to try it on a Sunday evening on a hot day after they have all been to the beach for the weekend. It is simply impossible. The way around that is — and we are in all sorts of skirmishes with the City of Melbourne at the moment — obviously a ring-road to the north of Melbourne to connect the areas of Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, the Tullamarine Freeway, the Hume Highway and Gippsland so that you can actually go around Melbourne. Not everyone wants to go into Melbourne, and that is what many people miss in the point. If you come from Gippsland and you want to go to the tourism areas here, it would be much easier if you could go around Melbourne rather than through it. I think the problem with the West Gate Bridge is that two-thirds of the people who go across the West Gate Bridge at the moment break off and go into the city, so it is impossible to provide more exits off that road to alleviate the problem. But if there is access right around Melbourne, it will free up the traffic to every area in Victoria basically and link all those tourist areas. The CHAIR — Is there scope within the rail system for further volumes to get people off the roads? Mr COUSINS — Unfortunately we have not got about 3 hours to spend on maps, but the first problem I see with the railway is that whilst I accept the fast train, the diesel train, at the moment, it would have been far better for the people here if it was electric and it was possible to get into the network. At the moment the diesel has to terminate at the old Spencer Street. I do use it myself occasionally, but invariably for where I want to go in Melbourne I have to get off at Spencer Street, and it is another half-hour to get somewhere. If I could actually link into the underground and the rest of it on an electric train, it would be far better. Also there are problems with the electric train going further down. They talk about another 70 000 people going south of Geelong, but there is a tunnel between here and South Geelong that would be very hard to re-engineer, which makes it difficult to electrify that section of the line. I think the other impediment to the rail, of course, is North Melbourne; the suburban trains take precedence over the country trains in that area. The CHAIR — Yes, that is a problem we share. Mr COUSINS — I think it would be very good for this body to interview Rod Eddington. We talked at length about the rail, we talked at length about Avalon, and we talked at length about the port. All of those affect this area in terms of moving people, and moving people is the essential ingredient of tourism. The CHAIR — You mentioned Skandia. What is that? Mr COUSINS — Skandia is the yacht race weekend here. That is funded by the major events group, as is the airshow. They do not get a lot of money, and they fight for it every time, but in terms of the numbers of people who go to those two events I think you would find they are more significant than the grand prix, where you spend $50 million a year, or something like that, to keep going. The CHAIR — Did we just lose the world championship triathlon event that normally comes to Geelong? Mr COUSINS — It does.