Rob Scott: Southland mayor on the new cash injection for Milford Sound

The Government's helping protect a tourism crown jewel - with a cash injection for Milford Sound.

It's putting more more than $15 million into a new alpine walk, clearing landfills and upgrading amenities and flood protection - much coming from the visitor levy.

Cruise ships will be permitted back into inner parts of the Sound. 

Southland Mayor Rob Scott says it's essential the ships don't take away from the experience for others.

He explained if lots of cruise ships are blocking the view of Mitre Peak, no one gets the experience. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Here the duples two ninety two is the text number.
Standard text fees apply. Now the government is protecting the
crown jewel of the tourism industry. This is, of course,
Milford Sound. Tourism Minister Louise Upston today announced that the
government has rejected plans to ban cruise ships in Milford Sound.
It will instead invest fifteen million dollars into infrastructure. Rob
Scott is the Mayor of Southland and with us.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Now, hey Rob, good thing here?

Speaker 1 (00:24):
I'm well, thank you. Do you like this?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Oh? I do like this? Yeah. I think it's important
that the government's recognized the value of You mentioned it
one of the crown jewels. I've got a few of
the crown jewels for tourism in Southland, but Milford Sound
is certainly one of them.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
Do you think that this will mean the cruise ship
companies will start booking trips back to New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Now, I guess so. To be honest, I haven't. Actually
I've been up on West Home today looking at wild
and pines, so I've just come up and I've been
quite remote, so I've only just started finding out about
the announcement myself. So I'm still getting my head around
there and are details of it.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
Rob, do you accept because a couple of weeks ago
on the show, we were talking about the fact that
cruise ships are not coming to New Zealand, and part
of the reason they're not coming to New Zealand is
because they weren't sure about what was going to happen
in Milton Sound. But now that they are sure they're
able to come, surely it then follows that they will
start booking the trips back, weren't they.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah, certain certainty as a key and all of that,
especially when when they're at the advertising say, I mean
will have we noticed the same with tuy As soon
as you get that certainty and that gives their confidence
in the sector to start doing things. So yeah, I
mean there's always the.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Risk Rob, that we're out of sight, out of mind
now right now that they don't come here anymore, they're
just not going to come here anymore. Is that a risk?

Speaker 2 (01:40):
No, I don't think so. I think New Zealand in particular,
I think is on the backup list of a lot
of tourists around the world, and we've got a pretty
special product down here and sometimes when it's hard to
access it might actually make it more attractive. So I think, yeah,
I don't think we're going to be forgotten about because
we've actually got something special down here.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
How do the locals feel about it, because at the
time that I mean, it sounded to me like the
locals actually might have liked the cruise ships to be banned.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, there's mixed views, and I think it's important whatever
we do around Milford as a country, we don't throw
the baby out with the bath order and we look
after the experience that everyone's actually coming to see. So
and part of that is ensuring that. I mean, if
you put a whole lot of cruise ships and they're
blocking the view of Mighty Peak, then no one gets
to actually have the experience. So it's about how well

(02:31):
it's managed. And I think part of what that Melford
Opportunities project was designed to do was there and it
was quite ambitious, and I don't think a lot of
what was raised in that project has been addressed. But
the key part of it all is ensuring that anyone
that goes there gets a good experience and managing that
and cruise ships can be a part of that, both

(02:52):
rightly and wrongly. So I think it's just a case
of managing it properly.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Robinson, what are you going to do with the fifteen
million bucks for infrastructure?

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yeah, I don't know too many of the details on
where that is, but it's going to go a reasonable
way and we're getting close to a million people a
year coming in there and it's important to recognize that
and get that funding coming through to support it. We
can't a small community in Southend with twenty one thousand
right players fund infrastructure for that level of people. So yeah,

(03:22):
I'm sure it will make a reasonable dent and here
and what's needed going forward.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Good stuff. Congrats Rob, appreciate it, Rob Scott, Mayor of Southland.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
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