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26 June – 9 July 2012
MPNEWS (1300 676 397) or email: team@mpnews.com.au www.mpnews.com.au
Tourism united Frankston ‘joins’ peninsula
Lines long forgotten: John Wells, top left, Phil Wall, Gil Tucker, bottom left, and John Orcsik act up at the Cop Shop reunion show at Radio Port Phillip’s studios in Mornington last Friday. Picture: Yanni
Arresting performance at radio reunion SOME of Melbourne’s most famous police officers descended on Radio Port Phillip’s studios in Mornington last Friday, but there was not a uniform to be seen. The “coppers� were actors who made the series Cop Shop one of the most-watched police shows in Australian television history. The series was made by Crawford
Productions and 582 episodes about life at the fictional Riverside police station were broadcast between 1977 and 1984. Cop Shop cast members at RPP’s Friday On My Mind program, presented by John Wells and Phil Wall of Chelsea, were John Orcsik, who played Detective Mike Georgiou, and Gil Tucker (Constable Roy Baker).
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On the phone from Sydney were Paula Duncan (Danni Francis) and Joanna Lockwood Walker (Valerie Johnson). Ringing in from Melbourne was Alan Fletcher, aka Constable Frank Rossi. About 40 invited guests packed the BlueScope Performance Studio. Friday On My Mind is every Friday 9-11am on 98.7FM.
By Keith Platt FROM a tourism promotion point of view, Frankston is about to become part of the Mornington Peninsula. Details of the new Mornington Peninsula Tourism Board will be outlined at an industry briefing on Monday and publicly launched on 17 July. The board will initially be financed with $40,000 from Tourism Victoria and $25,000 each from Frankston and Mornington Peninsula councils. A nine-member committee will be headed by executive chairperson Tracey Cooper, the only paid employee. It is understood Ms Cooper – who has a background in business (including a Hunter Valley winery) and as head of the St Kilda Tourism Association board – will operate two days a week from an office at Frankston. Tourism Victoria’s Tom Smith has overseen the establishment of the new peninsula board, which supersedes both Mornington Peninsula Tourism and Frankston Tourism. Mr Smith said the six directors on the new board’s committee were “skills-based�. Ms Cooper was chosen from nine applicants and there were 42 nominees for the directors. The directors are Greg O’Donoghue (Mornington Peninsula Gourmet), Conleth Roche (manager RACV resort Cape Schanck), Matt McDonnell (Searoad Ferries), Andrea Lucas, Sheree Fraser and Brian Boote (formerly with Tourism Australia). Also on the board will be the shire’s sustainable development director Stephen Chapple and Frankston’s coordinator of tourism and economic development, Sam Jackson. The changes to tourism within the
region were foreshadowed in a Tourism Victoria report Regional Tourism Action 2009-2012. The board will be given two years to draw up a five-year “strategic tourism industry development plan� and a “viable funding model� (‘Capitalising on tourism’, The Times, 29/3/12). The shire has indicated it wants the new board to have stronger links to the Western Port Biosphere Foundation and the peninsula’s marine industry. In March the shire’s economic development manager Shane Murphy said Mornington Peninsula Tourism and 10 local tourism associations had been “highly successful�, winning awards and attracting visitors to the peninsula. He described tourism as “a major propulsive sector for the local economy� and estimated the peninsula industry to be worth $850 million a year. The announcement of the new board follows the establishment of a Victorian Tourism Employment Plan by the state and federal governments. Plans for Phillip Island and the peninsula will be drawn up by a consultant. “We will be consulting local businesses including hotels, cafes and restaurants, and travel and retail businesses to develop a targeted plan as part of our overarching strategy to further grow Victoria’s $15.2 billion tourism industry, which employs 193,000 people,� state tourism minister Louise Asher said. Her federal counterpart Martin Ferguson said TEPs would save businesses in Phillip Island and on the peninsula time and money by linking them with existing programs to improve education and training, and by supporting “recruitment and retention and labour mobility outcomes�.
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