TOURISM in the South West has been earmarked as a priority for future funding in the WA state budget.
During a budget breakdown breakfast in Margaret River on Friday morning, state minister for Regional Development Terry Redman was questioned by local tour operator Neil McLeod about the Busselton airport proposal, which has been in the pipeline for many years.
Mr McLeod said the government needed to follow the example of Queenstown in New Zealand, which he compared to the South West in terms of population and diversity of tourism products.
“There are 30 flights a week to Queenstown from Auckland alone, and direct flights from Perth to Auckland.”
“There is nowhere in Australia [like the South West] with so many different products on offer to tourists,” Mr McLeod said.
“We need another hub, another airport. We need people coming in to the South West with cash in their pockets.”
Mr Redman agreed that agriculture and tourism needed to be prioritised and the construction of an airport would help to achieve this.
He said he had observed the way Queenstown had combined tourism and agriculture in a way “no one else has been able to achieve.”
However, he stopped short of giving any details regarding a timeframe or specific funding for the Busselton airport project.
South West Development Commission chairman Stuart Hicks said the Busselton airport was at the top of a list of projects the commission had put to the government in a recent funding blueprint.
He said Mr Redman’s announcement of $600 million over five years in the Royalties for Region funding for the state’s southern region was an unprecedented figure and would go a long way to realising the airport project.
“We will work with the government every step of the way to achieve that.”
