"You'll want to tell the Prime Minister."
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Appearing in the corner of Canberra Times cartoonist David Pope's vintage-style tourism poster, the words wouldn't be out of place no matter the location it featured.
But there's a deeper meaning to it appearing on the poster for Nelligen.
One of the town's residents and volunteer firefighter made headlines during the fires, when a TV camera crew filmed him hanging out the window of a firetruck, delivering an expletive-laced message to Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
At the time, Paul Parker was exhausted and emotional, after fighting fires for days. Nelligen itself was under attack from the Clyde River fire and Parker and other Nelligen firefighters had battled for hours to save three houses in the village.
When he saw the 7 News TV crews back in town, Parker said: "Are you from the media? Tell the Prime Minister to go and get f---ed from Nelligen. We really enjoy doing this shit, f---head."
It came in response to the Prime Minister first rejecting calls for more bushfire help, saying volunteer firefighters "want[ed] to be there".
Now, Parker's words have been immortalised in Pope's artwork as part of The South Coast is Calling series.
Along with Nelligen, the first eight artworks in the series feature Cobargo in the Bega Valley, holiday towns Batemans Bay and Narooma, Conjola in the Shoalhaven, Mogo of Mogo Wildlife Park fame, Murramarang National Park and Clyde Mountain.
Each of the eight posters aims to celebrate these places and to boost visits to the towns hit hard by the bushfires.
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Parker's message to the Prime Minister not only inspired part of Pope's poster but it also prompted people from across the country to call in to Nelligen's Steampacket Hotel, to buy Parker a beer, creating a seemingly endless bar tab.
"The money is still coming in for Paul," publican Joel Alvey says.
"A few people have still sort of got their nose up in the air about it but there are quite a lot more that are in support of him."
Alvey says business has been slowly picking up since the fires hit, and the Canberra long weekend had been The Steampacket Hotel's best weekend since the end of November.
At its height, spotting from the Clyde Mountain fire came within 30-40 metres of the back of the pub. Once the immediate threat was over, lost power and the difficult customer access to Nelligen created further issues.
"As a whole, everyone is still sort of recovering," Alvey says.
"We're trying to as much as we can to support each other. Trying to pick up the pieces, pretty much.
"What was lost, we've lost, unfortunately, but we'll keep soldiering on and putting on events to draw the crowd in.
"[Outside] support has definitely died off. I think everyone is sort of focusing on the coronavirus at the moment."
- The South Coast is Calling series will appear in ACM newspapers daily to help drive tourism to the fire-affected region. Prints will soon be available to order with funds raised going to bushfire recovery.