Lisa: “Look on the bright side Dad, did you know that the Chinese use the same word for crisis as they do for opportunity?”

Homer: “yes – Crisitunity”.

While most of the community including myself, opposed the merger, we should now view the merger as a “crisitunity”.

Our new council will be able to better co-ordinate resources. Take for example tourism. Better co-ordination between Dubbo’s tourism assets and Wellington’s, will make the region much easier to market.

We could explore the possibility of a management cluster of the attractions to provide greater expertise and efficiency. Clustering of tourist attractions isn’t a new phenomenon or a crazy pipe dream of mine – it’s a tourism tactic that has existed for years.

Take for example, the Gold Coast. There the theme parks, resorts and hospitality venues all band together in marketing and promotion. Some parks (three owned by one company) are able to share marketing, technical and management teams which streamlines operations and creates savings that make those businesses more profitable.

Now look at the possibility of the Dubbo gaol, cultural centre, Wellington Caves (potentially Dundulimal Homestead) all under one management and expertise umbrella, cross-pollinating visitors and strengthening our regional tourism offering.  With such a cluster of attractions it will be possible to broaden staff expertise with the employment of heritage experts and dedicated tourism marketing strategists.

As the former committee chairman for the gaol, I can testify on the fiscal problems we had caused by the scope and cost of getting in bigger experts with greater capacity to manage and direct the business.  A new management unit in council dedicated to all the council-owned tourist attractions will no doubt have the capacity and strength to be able to deliver the big guns needed to drive the business further.

With a new marketing and business model of tourist attractions clustered together we surely can expect significant growth in visitor numbers.  This in turn could even see an actual increase in staff numbers due to visitor and customer demand – a potential outcome I’m sure the good folks in Wellington who are worried about the loss of staff numbers would be happy with.

Dubbo has one of the (if not the) best regional airports in NSW.  Since 2004, airport annual numbers have risen from 88,000 to 190,000. The Royal Flying Doctor Service is planning to expand its Dubbo base.

Now look at Bodangara Airstrip at Wellington. By Bodangara’s very nature of being small there is now an ideal opportunity to have an overall Western Plains Airports Management Team giving direction for Dubbo to be the primary airport designed for domestic passenger travel and high end airport leasehold customers while Bodangara can focus on providing the back of operation business such as maintenance, flying schools and agri-aeronautics – all with the distinct possibility of actually growing the business and providing increased staffing levels.

Western Plains Regional Council will be divided between five wards each with two elected councillors. And let’s face it – the political situation in Dubbo over the last few electoral cycles was broken. With an open system like we used to have, some councillors elected with nearly six thousand votes sat at the same council table as those who only got 300 votes!  Under the new ward system, candidates will have to be genuinely chosen by voters within their wards to get elected in the first two spots. There will be no more of this electoral trickery where pooling preferences together will see a swag of councillors elected with just a few hundred votes.  

So, there are positives with the merger. One thing we have to work out is if we want to keep the name Western Plains Regional Council. If I were a smart alec, I might suggest calling it Crisitunity Regional Council.