When you talk economics though there are a lot of locals who just don't quite understand what drives our economy.

We all know some stats about our awesome city. We know there are around 42,000 people living in Dubbo and another 9,000 in Wellington.

We know that we are on the crossroads of three major highways. We all certainly know that we have a huge zoo that does vitally important things with conservation.

We know that there is a fantastic Aussie success story named Fletchers International Exports that employs hundreds of people and generates millions of dollars for not only Dubbo - but is considered to be a nationally significant exporter.

But there is an anomaly!

A lot of people simply do not understand that our economy and the jobs it supports is largely based around what we do for central and western NSW.

This anomaly is something that comes out when discussing our economic strength and service provision and how to grow our city’s customer base.

Take for example the Kmart debate. It's been five years since my well-known Aldi, Kmart and JB Hi-Fi council election campaign where I promised to "Let Them Come".

There were nay-sayers at the time that said we should support locally owned stores.

Adding to the challenge were corporate decision makers in Sydney saying Dubbo was "only" a population of 42,000 people and asking how this justified investment.

So while the city’s population is some 42,000 people the Orana Region population is over 120,000 and we are a retail shopping and service centre to approximately 200,000 people.

In simple terms, people from smaller towns and farms all over the west come here to do their retail shopping and seek other services.

National business executives need to realise that Dubbo simply does not equal only 42,000 people.

We should be considered far more than double that!

It is frustrating that there are still some big wigs from the national retail companies who do not understand Dubbo’s unique retailing situation.

It’s just as frustrating to me to hear local people actively criticise attempts to lure the big retailers by arguing that we need to only encourage small local retailers.

The reality is the big nationals need the small local retailers to make the city a retail mix that is attractive and keeps us competitive.

We shouldn’t see this as a matter of the big guys versus the small local retailers.  

In fact, many of our economic development programs are supporting local business through shop local campaigns, promotion of the retail offering and specific business development projects.

The real team we should all be on is Team Dubbo where we all focus on making Dubbo as competitive as it can be.

We all know Dubbo is growing.

Our new housing estates are developing quickly - but we must be mindful that we also need grow our service population who lives outside our city limits.

In order for Dubbo to compete with the likes of Orange, Tamworth and Parkes we need to make sure our retail offering is as good as or better than our competitors.  

We simply cannot afford to lose customers to those other regional centres.  

It’s for this reason I have pushed the case for attracting new retailers here like Kmart.

Five years ago I was called a populist for this attitude, but the economics and reality of business backs up my argument.

Clearly we need to keep our position as Hub of the West.  

The best way to do that is by encouraging significant retail growth.

For that reason I say bring on Kmart!