Australian Cultural and Creative Activity: A Population and Hotspot Analysis: Central West Queensland: Blackall-Tambo, Longreach and Winton

This report is designed to strategically address aspects of cultural and creative activity in Central West Queensland. It focuses on core features that make the region distinctive: the critical social role that arts play; tourism’s dependence on cultural heritage infrastructure; and the ambitions for screen production in, and representation of, the region. It also touches on opportunities for policy and program development by government, council and public agency.
Major points
The Central West Queensland region is facing huge challenges—the major psychological and economic depressive effects of long-term drought, youth leaving for work and study, and the recent loss of its leading local post-secondary education facility, the Queensland Agricultural Training College, and the wellestablished additional costs of cultural consumption in remote Australia. Despite this, it is an outstanding example of a remote community whose dedicated and resourceful people have established and maintained nationally significant cultural and heritage infrastructure underpinning the tourism activity which has become increasingly a mainstay of the local economy.