Gary Fitz-Roy, managing director Expertise Events, attended the one-hour private meeting with Morrison on Monday 20 July, and told Jeweller, “What the Prime Minister understands is that people have a desire to meet and do business face-to-face.
"And he observed that now, by default, Australian companies and businesses have an amazing opportunity to capitalise on a captive market.”
The meeting addressed key challenges for the events industry ahead of high-profile shows like the IJWF – namely, differing rules and regulations between states: “At the moment, our industry's observation is that it's very state-based. For us to recover – not just the event and exhibition industry, but the economy as a whole – we need to have a national approach,” Fitz-Roy said.
While he acknowledged that the majority of events regulation is controlled by State authorities, Fitz-Roy said the Prime Minister was willing to take on a ‘facilitator’ role.
Indeed, in a press conference immediately after the meeting, Morrison said: “We can get business events running again, we can get exhibitions running again, they can be done safely, they can be done economically and viably, and so today was a good opportunity to consult with the industry and get a good handle on some of the obstacles they have, some of the challenges that they will have to get across.
“And I look forward to raising those with the Premiers… as the National Cabinet meets, and working through with my own Ministers as we meet as Cabinet this week as well.”
Fitz-Roy added: “We will keep in contact with the Prime Minister – we've opened up the door. The exhibition industry has also launched a new positioning which is #expoready – that is to say, we are ready to welcome people back, safely, and we're ready to do it in a controlled environment and ready to deliver a commercial return.
“Like a number of industries, we've now been approved as COVID-Safe. The simple truth is, we need to accept that COVID-19 is here to stay, just like chicken pox or influenza. COVID-19 is part and parcel of our lives for the next year or two, and it will be a matter of how we work with it,” he added.
The IJWF is scheduled to proceed as planned on 12–14 September at the ICC Sydney Exhibition Centre in Darling Harbour; Expertise Events is expected to release an update on the status of the fair at the end of July.
WATCH PRESS CONFERENCE: PRIME MINSTER'S ADDRESS, 20 JUL, 2020
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