Regional Cities Victoria’s annual forum has identified population growth, tourism, higher education and unlocking infrastructure investment as its priorities for the next 12 months.
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City of Greater Bendigo chief executive officer Craig Niemann said the meeting was an opportunity for councils to learn from one another, with Bendigo’s recent Marilyn Monroe exhibition held up as an example of a successful driver of tourism.
He said the wider benefits to the region including to retail, hospitality and accommodation businesses were of particular interest to the other delegates.
“The Marilyn Monroe exhibition was one of the topics that was discussed last Friday, how did we go about delivering that project in Bendigo, what were the benefits from it,” he said.
“That was an opportunity for other regional cities to learn how we’ve done that in Bendigo.”
Mr Niemann represented Bendigo at the Melbourne conference, but said the focus was on driving the interests of regional Victoria in general, with each of the councils sharing similar goals.
“We don’t do this for just for Bendigo or just for Ballarat, we do it for what the best position we can do as a group, to make sure we get the best outcomes for regional areas,” he said.
“They generally align with what we would think are important for a regional city like Bendigo.”
Mr Niemann said RCV had been an invaluable tool for building relationships with the state government and advocating for regional priorities.
“Years ago there wasn’t a Regional Development Fund or Regional Jobs and Infrastructure Fund,” he said.
“As an advocacy group Regional Cities Victoria worked and advocated to the state government of the day and said ‘we really need the state government to be setting aside some funding to invest directly into regional Victoria and the government of the day saw that as a good opportunity to take up and that’s been in place for many years now.”
City of Greater Bendigo mayor Rod Fyffe is the current chair of RCV, which also includes mayors and CEOs from Ballarat, Geelong, Horsham, Latrobe, Mildura, Shepparton, Wangaratta, Warrnambool and Wodonga, but was unable to attend the forum.