Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Last Friday, the Minister for the Environment and Water and I announced that the Victorian Goldfields have been added to Australia's Tentative World Heritage List. This is the first and foremost step for World Heritage status. From the open-cut mines of Castlemaine to the Victorian-era buildings of Bendigo, the region is considered one of the most extensive and best-surviving gold rush landscapes in the world. A successful World Heritage bid is great for many local businesses and our hospitality and tourism industry, but what puts this at risk is the Liberal and National parties. The National Party hate anything to do with heritage—they call it red tape—and they call the World Heritage List woke. It is not. The Victorian Goldfields gaining World Heritage status is expected to boost tourism in the area, with an additional 2.2 million visitors annually within the first 10 years of being listed. That's good for business. That is not woke.

For decades this project of World Heritage listing the Victorian Goldfields has been talked about, but it's only now happened, because of a federal Labor government. We get heritage. We get that it is an opportunity to share our stories with the world and give people who travel to World Heritage sites another place to go on their bucket list.

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