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Speaker 1: Well, as you've heard, a master plan on the future

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Speaker 1: of the Northern Territories eighty five Parks and Reserves is

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Speaker 1: now complete. It sets out a number of targets for

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Speaker 1: the next thirty years around nine themes, including tourism, park

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Speaker 1: access and Aboriginal economic development. Now developing a plan for

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Speaker 1: new tourism products, a climate change strategy and as well

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Speaker 1: as that new short walks and swimming areas and for

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Speaker 1: wheel drive tracks with camping sites are among the goals

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Speaker 1: over the next couple of years. And joining me on

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Speaker 1: the line to talk further about it is Sally Egan,

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Speaker 1: who's the executive director of Parks and Wildlife. Good morning

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Speaker 1: to you, Sally.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, how are you?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, really good, Thanks for your time this morning, Sally.

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Speaker 1: What's the aim of the master plan?

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Speaker 2: So, really, what we were trying to do when we

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Speaker 2: set out on this exercise was to have some sense

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Speaker 2: of how the community felt about an agreed set of

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Speaker 2: strategic adjectives. So we it's been a while since we've

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Speaker 2: had a broader public conversation about what national parks are

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Speaker 2: for in the Northern Territory and what our community expect

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Speaker 2: from them. So it was an opportunity to just firm

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Speaker 2: some of that up.

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Speaker 1: And so as part of the plan, what are those

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Speaker 1: main themes that you're really trying to sort of firm

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Speaker 1: up and give people a better idea I guess of

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Speaker 1: what we're looking at to the future.

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Speaker 2: So we needed to say something about our biodiversity values

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Speaker 2: and cultural values and I guess restate that that was

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Speaker 2: the primary purpose of the National Park and that's what

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Speaker 2: informs people about when they visit our parks. That's the

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Speaker 2: branding that they're really looking for. That's what National Park

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Speaker 2: means to people. We also needed to do some resetting

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Speaker 2: and recommitment in the joint management space. So it's an

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Speaker 2: amazing commitment, the joint management commitment in the Northern Territory,

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Speaker 2: and it just needed a bit of a fresh look

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Speaker 2: to make sure that we were able to go forward

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Speaker 2: into a future with that. Tourism and recreational futures for

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Speaker 2: territory parks are very important. So we all understand how

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Speaker 2: integral tourism and parks are in the charitory. They're hand

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Speaker 2: in hand and territorians are reliant on the Park of

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Speaker 2: State for most of their recreational opportunities. There isn't a

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Speaker 2: lot of other land access opportunities in the churitory if

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Speaker 2: it's not to one of our parks that reserve. So

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Speaker 2: that was really important. We have to do our bit

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Speaker 2: in the abervision economic development space, and you know, we've

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Speaker 2: got lots and lots of opportunity, but without a new,

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Speaker 2: stated and concerted effort, then you know, change won't happen

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Speaker 2: by itself. We needed to really decide what it was

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Speaker 2: that we were going to do in that space and

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Speaker 2: push the agenda partnerships. You know, we can't do this

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Speaker 2: on our own. We need everybody to help us with it.

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Speaker 2: Growing the estate. So this was an interesting conversation about

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Speaker 2: whether Territorians would be interested in seeing more national parks

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Speaker 2: and reserves given that there is such a large amount

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Speaker 2: of land already set aside from production in the territory.

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Speaker 2: And we've got really strong feedback that yes, Territorians would

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Speaker 2: be keen to see new parks and reserves established year right.

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Speaker 2: And lastly, park access and this is a funny little theme.

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Speaker 2: This is really about, you know, making sure that we're

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Speaker 2: keeping a live agenda on infrastructure and road access. And

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Speaker 2: we got quite strong feedback from people about equity of access.

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Speaker 2: So Territorians want everybody to be able to go to parks,

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Speaker 2: you know, all abilities people people, whether they're rich or poor.

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Speaker 2: All of that came up in that conversation, so we

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Speaker 2: just needed to say something about that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, now, can you tell me about some of that

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Speaker 1: infrastructure which has been flagged as part of the master plan.

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Speaker 2: So there's a second document that goes with the master plan,

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Speaker 2: which is called the NT Park's ten Year Activation Plan,

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Speaker 2: And this is where the infrastructure priorities got set. And

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Speaker 2: I'll be quite frank about those, because we only had

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Speaker 2: two years to do this. We didn't have time to

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Speaker 2: go out and have very long conversations about this. So

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Speaker 2: most of the stuff that's in here is things that

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Speaker 2: people would have seen before, not necessarily new stuff, new ideas,

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Speaker 2: and if there is a new idea, it'll be qualified

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Speaker 2: by you know, we'll have to talk to traditional owners

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Speaker 2: or they might need some more work we need to

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Speaker 2: do on that space. So that plan has quite a

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Speaker 2: long list of what we think we can build over

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Speaker 2: the next ten years. And you know, the money for that, well,

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Speaker 2: we'll have to some of it's already funded, some of

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Speaker 2: it's in the pipeline, and we know, we'll be able

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Speaker 2: to fund it, and some of it we'll be looking

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Speaker 2: for third party investors.

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Speaker 1: Yeah right, because that was going to be one of

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Speaker 1: the questions that I would ask is how exactly is

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Speaker 1: it going to be funded and is there going to

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Speaker 1: be additional costs to territories in terms of having to

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Speaker 1: pay to get access to park?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so the master plan is not happening in a vacuum.

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Speaker 2: It's happening in association with the revenue measures that people

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Speaker 2: are seeing roll out across parks. So there was the

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Speaker 2: increase in camping fees and the introduction of multi day

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Speaker 2: walking fees, which does affect territorians, and that has already

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Speaker 2: improved our resourcing, I guess. And then the next one,

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Speaker 2: the big one, the game changer, is the park's pass,

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Speaker 2: which is due in on the third of April, where

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Speaker 2: Territorians don't have to pay, and it's not my expectation

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Speaker 2: or anyone's expectation that they will have to. In fact,

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Speaker 2: we're setting up the online booking system so that you know,

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Speaker 2: you don't even have to log on if you're a

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Speaker 2: Territorian and get a parks pass, even for free.

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Speaker 1: Yeah right, So.

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Speaker 2: But that being able to have a reasonably low entry

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Speaker 2: fee for interstate and international visitors makes a huge difference

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Speaker 2: to resourcing, and we'll be able to do a lot

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Speaker 2: of the work that's in this master plan based on

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Speaker 2: that revenue stream.

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Speaker 1: So there is enough revenue that comes in from those

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Speaker 1: interstate visitors, or you're hoping that there will be from

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Speaker 1: sort of the third of April when those passes come

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Speaker 1: into play, that it will fund some of this work.

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Speaker 2: Correct, Yep, it'll fund a lot of things, So it'll

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Speaker 2: you know, a lot of the feedback that came up

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Speaker 2: in the planning process from people was that we want

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Speaker 2: more investment in joint management, we want more time spent

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Speaker 2: with traditional owners on country. We want better weed control,

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Speaker 2: we want better feral animal control. We want to be

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Speaker 2: able to see a ranger when we go out on park.

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Speaker 2: We want you to be a little bit fatter as

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Speaker 2: an organization, and we want our infrastructure to be maintained

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Speaker 2: a little bit better, and we want you to be

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Speaker 2: able to think about some new and interesting things. So

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Speaker 2: we'll go through a process now doing what I'm calling

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Speaker 2: an investment planning process, where we'll look at that revenue

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Speaker 2: and we'll will work out how we're going to try

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Speaker 2: and give the territory and community what they have asked for.

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Speaker 1: Sally, we are running out of time, but I do

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Speaker 1: want to ask when it comes to that gamber management,

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Speaker 1: how is that going and what additional work's going to

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Speaker 1: happen as part of your forward planning to make sure

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Speaker 1: that we've got the gamber grass under control as best

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Speaker 1: we can.

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Speaker 2: Gamber at Little. So it's an old issue, and I

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Speaker 2: know we're running out of time, but I think, you know,

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Speaker 2: we just have to sit down with all the information,

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Speaker 2: and we're really pleased that we've got the models, you know,

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Speaker 2: future projections from CDU because that makes let's just make

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Speaker 2: some really good decisions about what we do going forward.

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Speaker 2: We're not yet able to say we're going to do

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Speaker 2: this one or we're going to do that one. And

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Speaker 2: I still really want to see some sort of modeling

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Speaker 2: that tells me how much money I would need to

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Speaker 2: spend at Lichfield that would see gamber grass get less.

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Speaker 2: So the models that we've got at the moment are

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Speaker 2: still saying it'll be this amount of millions, and at

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Speaker 2: that amount of millions, you will hold the line. But

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Speaker 2: I think be bolder than that and say, well, how

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Speaker 2: many millions would it be before we start to see

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Speaker 2: less and less and less gamber at Lichfield. So it's

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Speaker 2: part of an ongoing conversation and I'm not apart from

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Speaker 2: the work that we've got in place, and you know,

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Speaker 2: this investment planning process, we're not yet at a position

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Speaker 2: to be able to say we're going to do X

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Speaker 2: at Litchfield, but we will do something well.

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Speaker 1: Sally Egan, the executive director of Parks and Wildlife, I

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Speaker 1: appreciate your time this morning. Thank you very much for

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Speaker 1: having a chat with us and talking us through some

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Speaker 1: of what is in that master plan.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, have a lovely day.

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Speaker 1: You two