Community leaders including Tomaree Business Chamber president Leah Anderson and Newcastle Airport CEO Peter Cock met with former deputy prime minister Wayne Swan on Friday.
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Paterson MP Meryl Swanson organised the brief meeting, which also included Will Rifkin from Hunter Research Foundation and Hunter Region Business GM Kerry Hallett.
Ms Anderson said there was a lot of discussion in a short amount of time, including the airport’s plans for a Greater Hunter Tourism Prospectus.
“Wayne had insights to share around the effects of boom and bust economies, sustainable job growth and our need to smooth out peaks and troughs to provide more sustainable employment and assist with underemployment,” she said.
“He also shared his ideas on tourism and whether our focus should not be more on promoting the area to get more traffic from the Sydney market, and other states, before spending money on promoting the region to international visitors.”
While Mr Swan’s comments could be interpreted as a mark against the airport’s recent international goals, he was quick to clarify.
“Most important of all, there needs to be a regional plan, to promote it from the beaches to its wine, or its walking paths, or whatever it is,” he said.
“I think it’s international and national – it’s not one or the other – I was very impressed with the airport.”
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Mr Swan said Newcastle Airport could soon find itself in an airport precinct with Sydney, like Maroochydore had with the Gold Coast and Brisbane.
“There’s always an opportunity to grow tourism opportunities where you have a precinct of airports, once you have that critical mass,” he said.
“The opportunity here is looking at the wider region, not just the city of Newcastle, and that’s happening.”
The meeting has the potential to shape Labor policy ahead of the next federal election.
“This type of meeting gives me an idea of what’s happening in this particular regional area but it’s similar to what’s happening elsewhere,” he said.
“It’s critical to get more permanent employment into this space to deal with what is widespread underemployment.
“Meryl is doing a great job bringing the players together to assist the wider region, on this occasion to talk about tourism.”
