STAT E O F
PLAY with
COFFS HARBOUR MP GURMESH SINGH
W
hat’s the difference between a job and a career? A career is an occupation which can be undertaken for a significant period of your life and, importantly, has opportunities for progress. We want our children to have careers of their own. The ability to climb the ladder, build prosperity, and live a meaningful life are all worthy life goals. But opportunities to build a career have always been greater in the cities. One of the goals I set myself when I entered politics was to level out this inequality. Since my election, I’ve worked hard to secure business and government investment in creating careers on the Coffs Coast. The exciting announcement about Pacific Bay Resort Studios and Village with Nana Glen actor Russell Crowe is a complete game changer for career pathways on the Coffs Coast. The resort will also build a hotel, a stateof-the-art film school, an indigenous art gallery and an Olympic and film memorabilia museum. This precinct will be an important
LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION! cultural hub regional New South Wales will be proud to call home. Coffs Harbour ticks a lot of boxes for the film industry as well. We have a variety of different backdrops from urban to ocean, rainforest to rural and a great year-round climate perfect for filming. Making movies at a resort in a regional city also offers a much better work-life balance for crew, actors and their families. During breaks in filming, actors and crew can enjoy our wonderful city and spend time with their families instead of killing time in an industrial estate like they must do in other cities. Not only will the film studios put us on the world entertainment industry map, it brings with it opportunities and careers in varied fields. Film making will create many careers in the creative sector. But film making is a far more complicated process than it might appear from the outside. There are skilled technicians who operate the lighting and cameras. There are people who must build (and demolish) the sets which is almost like building a house. Then there are the people who paint the sets. There are
people who design the costumes. There are people who feed the crew. And people who transport everyone from location to location. And accountants to keep track of all the spending. The list of possible careers is long. And so is the list of opportunities. Over the years Coffs Harbour has been known for many things. Timber, fishing, bananas, tourism, and now hopefully film. The NSW Government will pursue establishing a Regional Job Precinct to help the project get off the ground in a timely manner. The State Government will investigate a range of options to support this exciting project. Regional Job Precincts, an extension of the Special Activation Precinct Program, provide planning support to help fast-track approvals and build shared infrastructure to drive growth, investment and development opportunities within regional NSW. This precinct, along with the Bypass and many other projects under way in Coffs Harbour at the moment, showcases the incredible confidence people have in the Coffs Coast and regional NSW more broadly. COFFS COAST
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