00:00We know the impacts are felt right through the Western Corridor. The whole
00:03region is hurting right now. In my opinion the closer you are to the shutdown the
00:10impacts are going to be more greatly felt. We know that we've had colloquial
00:16and anecdotal evidence of bookings being cancelled for hotels, people not
00:21traveling for their specialist appointments or even specialists not
00:25traveling here to undertake appointments, professionals not coming out here like
00:29lawyers missing court dates etc but also any kind of visitor economy like tourists
00:36just not coming out here. The biggest sector affected by this of course is the
00:41freight logistics and that goes both ways it's not just the businesses that have
00:45to try and get especially produce to Sydney for the people of Sydney to
00:50consume but the other way is that people in Sydney will be feeling the crunch in
00:55terms of higher prices. So it's a multi-pronged and multi-faceted hurt at
01:02this stage. We're asking the state government for a couple of things.
01:06Tranche A would be a hyper-local campaign. I feel we've got a responsibility to our
01:11business community here to stand something up pretty quickly. Council has already
01:15started to articulate and put some messaging out there within existing
01:20budgets as small as they are about retaining your travel plans especially to
01:24events like the NRL but also the six hour and other things happening in our
01:29region. It's important to support the visitor economy but every economy and to
01:34support every sector within our business community we really need some help from
01:38the state government and we are asking for about $80,000 from Minister
01:43Acheson or whoever she deems necessary and then $150,000 ask is a broader
01:49tranche that would effectively bring in our neighbours and we like to be a good
01:54neighbour at Rackes and we do have depth within our visitor information centre and
01:58our destination marketing team to put on pretty high calibre and contracted
02:05marketing campaigns and that would bring Blaine in over on and some neighbouring
02:10LGAs and paint that central tablelands picture about visitation. It's important to
02:15know it's not about increasing the bookings though, it's not about increased visitation
02:20at this stage. We know that the Bells line of road with extra trucks and extra
02:25movements on it is on a go slow. It's not a great user experience but also it's not as
02:32safe as some of the other options and we'd be working with Transport for New South Wales if
02:38they're willing to give us this finance to actually articulate alongside their
02:44strategies of where they think people should use alternative routes and we'll
02:49be messaging that. We think it's best delivered from a Bathurst Council level for
02:52this hyperlocal approach and then we've been in discussions with the joint
02:56organisation which is the Council of Councils in our central area and they'll be
03:01leading a more regional unified approach that tries to tackle the bigger picture stuff.
03:08We know the impacts of that.
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