Economic Development & Tourism Strategy

The RCOW needs to establish a dedicated Tourist Information Centre in the Wangaratta township. The Ned Kelly Discovery Hub and Visitor Information Centre provides a great story about Ned Kelly but is far from a quality information centre. In order to minimise cost I suggest a dedicated Tourist Information Centre be established in an existing Council asset, there is no need to build a new centre. If use of the old library is a financial restriction, as better income can be earnt from it, what are the alternatives. Establish a tourism information centre at the Wangaratta Council Office to left the entry door in the main foyer, there is plenty of space. The fitout cost would be minimal. Yes, this would required weekend access, so consideration is need to security and access to other parts of the building, not a barrier and can be solved. In regard to parking, repurpose parking in Ford Street to accommodate long vehicle parking for caravans, for a reasonable amount of time. The Big W car park provide ample parking for normal size vehicles. The advantage of this CBD location is an advantage to local businesses. The movement to online information is not the only way to go, the travelling tourist visit high quality visitor information centres. Surrounding shire have the info centre so why not Wangaratta. Yes, there will be an ongoing staff cost. Please do not spend any more money on external consultants, let the locals citizens and local council staff develop a way forward.

The strategy focuses heavily on the economic development of Wangaratta and little on Tourism unless connected directly to economic development or focused on the environment, e.g. walking and cycling, fishing, rivers, etc.
These all have their place but not at the expense of other aspects of tourism such as our history.
It is disappointing to see no mention of the textile history of Wangaratta listed under Tourism Development - Historical tourism
Noted only in this section is to capitalise on heritage including Ned Kelly and the railway.
Whatever happened to the Wangaratta textile exhibition which was the precursor to the Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award? This event was well known across the region and the whole community was well represented in shop displays, workshops and exhibitions.
The strategy here is focusing heavily on culinary and high value such as the King Valley
Under item 2
Major Tourism Product Development Plan
-Cultural and arts activities, attractions and events.
Where is mention of the Museum? I note that the proposed Arts Precinct with its multi million dollar price tag does not include the museum at all. How can this be when we have a large local collection of artefacts and documents that are inaccessible due to a decrepit building and lack of council drive and interest. For many years this facility has been allowed to decay.
A brief survey of cities and towns in Victoria shows Wangaratta to be at the very bottom of the list with regard to a museum facility that showcases it’s history. If you want to add to reasons why tourists will visit, then have a good museum.
Making that museum focus on our textile history would be clever and add a point of difference to other museums. We even have several Boyd designed homes built by Bruck Textiles in the 60’s.
The continual use of the words enhance, support, encourage, explore, embrace, advocate and the phrase “ensure the sustainable development of……” just demonstrates this document is shallow and prepared by people who have little understanding of what Wangaratta really has to offer to tourists.

Removed by moderator.

The Draft Economic Development & Tourism Strategy 2024 – 2029, p. 17 says “Historical Tourism: Capitalise on Wangaratta’s cultural heritage, including its Ned Kelly connection and historic railway, for historical tourism.” I see in The Chronicle (31 July 2024, p. 2) that Visitor Services moved from Murphy Street to the Glenrowan Kelly Discovery Hub and also to a kiosk in the PAC Centre. Apparently this has increased face to face visitor counts, and the article reports that the Hub “is strategically located in Glenrowan, a prominent stop for travellers from Melbourne”.

The enthusiasm for Kelly tourism is badly misfounded. It stems from the $150,000 or so ‘Ned Kelly Alive’ report of 2 August 2018 commissioned by Wangaratta Council that envisaged a multi-million dollar string of Kelly projects that would allegedly increase tourism, visitor stay length, and tourism-related income in the north east. I submitted a detailed 16 page ‘Ned Kelly Alive report response’ to Wangaratta Council (and to every other NE Victorian Council on the Ned Kelly Touring Route) on 22 August 2018 showing that the financial modelling was grossly overoptimistic and that most of the projects would necessarily run at a significant loss without increasing visitor length of stay or spending. A couple of Councils (not Wangaratta) thanked me for the feedback; Wangaratta Council will have my response on file, and can re-request it if they wish.

In September 2021 Wangaratta Council published an EOI for a Project Manager to review and update all the material promoting the Ned Kelly Touring Route. I applied for this position on 10 October 2021 with a 19 page submission detailing dozens of historical factual errors in the NKTR literature, tourist signage, and website content. I didn’t get the job; but almost none of those glaring historical errors were fixed by whoever was put in charge of updating NKTR factual misinformation.

Between the mid-2018 Ned Kelly Alive report and today, the entire intellectual landscape of Kelly studies has changed drastically. New research and books has rendered practically the whole Kelly story as presented by Ian Jones and other authors writing before Ian MacFarlane’s 2012 ‘The Kelly Gang Unmasked’ redundant. In particular my own freely downloadable 2015 ‘Redeeming Fitzpatrick’ article and 2018 ‘Ned Kelly and the Myth of a Republic of North Eastern Victoria’ book overthrew two longstanding fictions that had long been at the heart of the Kelly myth. Grantlee Keiza’s 2017 ‘Mrs Kelly’ detailed the entire Kelly clan’s criminality in detail. Leo Kennedy’s 2019 ‘Black Snake: The Real Story of Ned Kelly’ updated the horror of the Stringybark Creek police murders, as did Lachlan Strahan’s 2022 ‘Justice in Kelly Country’. David Dufty’s 2022 ‘Nabbing Ned Kelly’ totally revised and updated the facts of the Kelly hunt, and Grantlee Keiza similarly contributed ‘The Kelly Hunters’ later that year. Doug Morrissey contributed a three volume critique of earlier Kelly fictions in his trilogy starting with his 2015 ‘Ned Kelly: A Lawless Life’, showing the predatory nature of Kelly-led organised stock theft. None of this recent research is incorporated in the dated and factually inaccurate signage and presentations of the Ned Kelly Touring Route, which is still printing copies of its aging error-rich foldout brochure distributed at tourist venues or provided by its website.

As for the Glenrowan Kelly Hub, it ought to be called the Kelly Misinformation Centre. On 15 October 2023 I sent the Wangaratta Council a 13 page critique, ‘The Ned Kelly Discovery Hub at Glenrowan – A Critical Review’, that detailed dozens of factual content errors in the Hub’s mispresentation of the Kelly story. The response? The Council said the Hub project team had been disbanded and that all feedback would be kept for review at some time in the future. Meanwhile gross blatant historical blunders that could be fixed at little more cost than fixing the signage, i.e. a small printing cost, continue to badly misinform. Again, I’m happy to re-provide that critique on request.
Other examples of Ned Kelly Tourist Route blunders to which I have alerted Wangaratta Council include my April 2024 ‘Ned Kelly’s Avenel School Days’, which showed that Ned and Annie Kelly (but not Maggie) attended the old original Richardson’s school at Avenel, not the Avenel Common School’; ‘Ned Kelly’s Last Words’, which showed that he never said ‘such is life’ but ended with a mumbled ‘Ah, well, I suppose’; ‘Ned Kelly and the Felons Apprehension Act’, which showed that a declared outlaw could not be shot on sight except in the special circumstance of armed resistance; ‘How long was Ned Kelly’s Last Stand?’, which showed that it was less than 10 minutes, and more. (All these can be googled and downloaded.) There is a long way to go before the Ned Kelly Touring Route catches up with the facts of the last few years.

The fact that the Kelly Hub has apparently received even more funding to present additional audio-visual or virtual reality material makes it imperative that it get its historical facts right before throwing that money away on more dated error-ridden historical fictions. Most importantly Glenrowan was about and attempt to derail a police special train and massacre its occupants including rail crew for no reason but blind revenge over the gaoling of Mrs Kelly. There was never any sympathiser army; it was all a badly wrought fiction by Ian Jones and John Molony led by the nose with deliberately false oral history, as I demonstrated in my Myth of a Republic book. The Hub barely mentions that psychopathic attempt at mass murder. It’s entire window on the outbreak is dated historical fiction.

I think there should be a Tourist Information Centre at Wareena park as there is ample parking for caravans and also a dump site. Somewhere to stretch their legs and if they have a pet to exercise them as well.You need to do something about our Main Street as it is not user friendly and the footpaths are too wide and they are not used enough by pedestrians We need mountain bike trails that would be all year round either in the Warbys or Eldorado This could bring mountain bike race meetings.A shopping complex out Yarrawonga Road which would relieve traffic congestion past two schools. We need another river crossing for cars which would also help relieve traffic congestion And it needs to be behind the WangarattA Showgrounds as then you would help traffic by them not needing to come into Murphy Street. I am not happy that you have closed our animal shelter.you have not considered the retirees that do not have internet or are not Facebook savvy losing there beloved pets We register our pets with you and you do not provide a service.

Once again, I would like to make comment re the Councils lack of vision re RV Tourism.
In my several previous communications to Council, I suggested that Wangaratta and surrounding townships look into the opportinity to become a 'RV Friendly Town' and / or an 'RV Friendly Destination', as per the determination of CMCA (Campervan Motorhome Club of Australia), the largest RV Club in Australia, once an application is recieved and approved. (I have previously supplied the necessary Information Sheet to Council to facilitate this).
I have viewed the current listings as in the June 2024 edition of the'Wanderer' magazine (the CMCA monthly magazine) and there are ZERO listings for the Wangaratta and surrounding area and only ONE listing for the RV Destination category - Milawa Brown Bros Vineyard (unless Thoona Pub and Tungamah Lions Park are in the RCoW).
As in my previous communications, letters to the media and community support, Wangaratta has THE IDEAL opportunity to create an RV stopover facility at the Wareena Park precient, the Dump Point is in place, there is ample area for RV parking (needs to be levelled & resurfaced) and toilets are already in place.
I have been travelling extensively throughout Australia over many years and it is GLARINGLY OBVIOUS that Wangaratta is way behind in the persuit of providing for the ever extending RV Tourist Market.
I would also like to point out that although Caravan Parks are an important part of catering for RV's, not all travellers can afford their prices / have a need for all the added extras (eg jumping castles, water playgrounds and the like), and if Councils continue to 'protect' their local caravan parks, then local businesses are not going to benefit from the 'other' RV Tourists who will move on to more 'friendly' destinations.
I trust that you will take on board my comments re the RV Tourism Industry.
Kind regards,
Angela Watson
President, CMCA Victorian Solos Chapter
Membership Number V90748

A city with the history of Wangaratta should have a functioning museum and tourist information centre. Compare us to for example Benalla and we are well behind. Rebuild both these facilities and tourists arriving in Wangaratta will have a starting point.

My submission, having read the “Economic Development and Tourism Strategy” Document is a simple plea.

I noted this statement in the document:



“Historical Tourism: Capitalise on Wangaratta’s cultural heritage, including its Ned Kelly connection and historic railway, for historical tourism. “



I also noticed in the document a photo of the giant Ned Kelly statue at Glenrowan.



My plea is a request that if information about Ned Kelly is going to continue to be a part of the local history that’s made available to visitors to the area, then can a determined effort be made to ensure that what is promoted is accurate and up to date. For decades, a narrative about the Kelly Gang and its origins has been promoted that is now out of date, and I would hope that local authorities would support accuracy honesty openness and truth in its tourist promotions, rather than the perpetuation of out-of-date mythology



In that regard I draw your attention to the observation that Kelly narratives occupy a much less prominent place in Beechworth tourist promotions than they used to; the famous Kelly Weekend stopped a few years ago, the Ned Kelly Vault has closed and the Kelly material on display in the Burke Museum has been drastically downsized. I believe this is a reflection of the growing recognition of Ned Kelly as a violent criminal, a thief and a murderer, rather than an icon and admirable Australian. This realisation creates an understandable reluctance to continue to promote him in the traditional way, and calls for a new approach to the Kelly story.


All of the published research over the last 12 years is in agreement: the claims that were popular in the 1970’s through to the early 2000’s, that Kelly was a victim of police corruption and persecution, that he was a quasi-political character who had a dream of a Republic in the North East, that his life was heroic and worthy of that status of an Australian icon – all these claims and many more have been shown to be myths with no valid basis in historical evidence. Ned Kelly was a member of an extended family of criminals, he was a delinquent youth who progressed steadily as he grew up from bully and petty criminal to murderer, bank robber and thankfully failed leader of a plan for a horrendous massacre at Glenrowan. The famous Kelly author Ian Jones wrote that what Kelly planned for Glenrowan was a ‘criminal atrocity on a monstrous scale’.


Rather than using books about the Outbreak that were published last century, can I suggest the authors and publications listed below be consulted for up-to-date assesments and understandings of the true story of the Kelly Outbreak, and these narratives be the ones that are promoted in place of the outdated inaccurate ones.



Thanking you for your attention


SOURCES

The Kelly Gang Unmasked (2012) by Ian MacFarlane

Ned Kelly : A lawless life (2015)by Doug Morrissey
Ned Kelly : Selectors squatters and Thieves (2018) by Doug Morrissey
Ned Kelly : The Stringybark Creek Police Murders (2020) by Doug Morrissey

The Myth of the Republic of NE Victoria Dr Stuart Dawson (https://ironicon.com.au/ned-kelly-republic-myth.htm)

Black Snake: The Real Story of Ned Kelly (2015) by Leo Kennedy and Mick Looby

Nabbing Ned Kelly (2022) by David Duftty

Mrs Kelly ()2017) by Grantlee Kieza

The Kelly Hunters (2022) by Grantlee Kieza

Justice in Kelly Country (2022) by Lachlan Strahan

The strategy promotes among other things increased tourism marketing and awareness, improving the length of visitor stays in the region and advocating the Rural City of Wangaratta as a premier, year-round destination. The best way to promote tourism, and achieve many of those aspirations, would be to have a dedicated tourist information centre in the Wangaratta township – a facility anyone visiting our region would expect. We don’t, however, have such a facility. One of council’s self-declared five core functions relating to economic and tourism development is “advocate” – in other words, publicly support and recommend. That sounds a lot like a well resourced tourist information centre to me!

How about a purpose built facility on the corner of Apex Park to replace the dilapidated tower that currently stands there? Plenty of parking, plenty of tourism facilities in the area, certainly street appeal and close to the CBD. That corner never floods, but if needed the rear of the building could be on stilts (similar to the Benalla council offices).

This is an opportunity to build something, not necessarily big in size, but a big statement. We could provide interactive screens on the outside to appeal to those who like technology. We could add some legitimate history, not just the sketchy and vandalised information provided on the existing tower. We could stop traffic passing through town with a visually appealing and well resourced facility that not only promotes the whole municipality but allows visitors to explore all the wonderful resources already in the Apex Park precinct.

How do we cover the cost? Well what about tapping into something like the Regional Tourism Investment Fund - up to $5 million for innovative tourism infrastructure projects in regional and rural Victoria. Sounds like a purpose built tourist information centre to me!

Before you start the costly process of “rebranding” and developing more strategies, how about you get back to basics and get serious about promoting our region and enhancing the visitor experience.

The draft Eco Dev & Tourism Strategy seems quite comprehensive and examines many aspects of the RCOW. It is lacking in one important detail. The are no Key Performance Indicators - a lot of words but no actions. RCOW is renowned as the "do nothing" shire - this merely supports that attitude, I am sorry to say. The strategies outlined are only "motherhood" statements, with no substance or course of action - other than a few "talk fests" and "seminars". Let me point out a few truths!
- Entrepreneurs do not need to be told how to do things. They already know that and are way ahead of any skills RCOW employees or consultants can provide.
- Entrepreneurs need barriers removed and fees lowered. Why does it take 4 - 6 weeks to get a building permit approved, and cost over $600, when a private building surveyor can do it in 2, and charge less. Surely council can discount fees for local businesses and speed up processes. Why does a small winery/brewery have to pay $100,000 to get a road widened to access their property? This discourages small start ups that will benefit the local economy. The road is council property and must be fit for purpose. If that purpose changes, council must foot the bill or stagnate.
- Land availability for housing and development is stagnating. Who is controlling that? Why are more properties not being allowed to subdivide? We are surrounded by empty paddocks, especially towards the Warbies, that is marginal farming land. There needs to be a goal of releasing more land for subdivision - not just motherhood statements of "looking into it"!
- Tourism is not being taken seriously. There needs to be a Visitor Information Centre, with adequate parking, even a cafe, where visitors can gather and plan their adventures with good advice, maps and brochures. On line information is totally inadequate and gives no idea of the scale and magnitude of what is on offer. It relies on the IT skill of the venue which is often lacking and out of date. Visit a few key tourism destinations to see how it should be done - Broken Hill, Winton, Longreach, Toowoomba Apex Park would be an ideal location for this - instead of that "hayshed" that is rarely used.
- Tourists won't come if there is not adequate parking for RV's and caravans. There should be at least one more public dump point near Apex Park &/or the Showgrounds. Council should provide low cost, book-on-line, RV camping at places like the Showgrounds or Wareena Park. Most other councils do. The Caravan Parks must be encouraged to change their operation to cater for self contained RV's. Each RV visit will leave $2-$300/day in the town, times 3/day, times 333 days = $300,000 p.a. - do the maths! RV and Caravan travel is a big business and growing. Get with the program, or be left behind.
- There is no mention of any advisory boards for Eco Dev or Tourism - or does RCOW think they know it all? Or they don't want "outsiders" telling them what to do so they can keep doing nothing?
- WSAC and WPAC are great resources but will become huge white elephants if not used to their potential. Staff at these facilities need an incentive plan to encourage more participation. There needs to be better marketing to sell their products. This is not just about wealth but health and well being.
- Marketing of Wangaratta is barely mentioned. Its as if council don't really want people to know what we have. That tourists are just a nuisance!

These are just a few, practical KPI's that I can suggest off the top of my head at the moment - am sure there are many other. If council really wants an Economic Development and Tourism Strategy that works, they must plan for it to work. As they say, "a failure to plan, is a plan to fail!" But, hey, you'll all get paid anyway!
Michael Reid
Former member of Eco Dev Board
Former Chair of Alpine Valleys Agribusiness Forum
Former owner Auldstone Cellars Winery
Currently a grey nomad who can't get away from Wang often enough and has to put up with the criticism from fellow travellers!