Ballarat's mayor has made a special trip to the nation's capital to meet with key bureaucrats involved in progressing a bid for international heritage recognition.
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Cr Des Hudson was in Canberra on Tuesday to provide a briefing on Ballarat's efforts to achieve UNESCO world heritage status, with further meetings planned with federal ministers Catherine King and Tanya Plibersek.
The aim is to inscribe the entire Central Victorian Goldfields region on the World Heritage list, recognising its significant gold rush-era sites. Ballarat and Bendigo are leading the campaign on behalf of 13 councils, and previously had positive talks with Victorian Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny.
Only one Australian location can be put forward for UNESCO consideration at a time and the goldfields are competing against several other applications.
Cr Hudson said the idea first came about decades ago, but had only picked up steam with support from other councils in the past five years. He was confident the benefits would be well worth the wait and the councils' investments, with significant boosts to tourism and jobs forecast in a 2022 economic assessment.
"Business will prosper if we can bring people and this is about having the tool to bring people," he said.
"If we think of our continuous Covid recovery and trying to bring more and more visitation into regional Victoria - it is about bringing tourism into all regions, not just the two larger centres of Ballarat and Bendigo but lots of smaller areas that also have part of the story of gold to be able to tell."
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The next steps include further preparation of strategic documents and obtaining a letter of support from the state government.
The project leaders are "trying to get as much done as [they] can to coincide with the Commonwealth Games being hosted in 2026," Cr Hudson said.
"The ideal would be for the UNESCO certification to have been done or for it to be awaiting that stage," he said.
"Even if we know that we're on the list for consideration, at least we are then very close."
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