Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I live only 40 minutes from Surfers Paradise and I never go there! The member for Moncrieff made a fantastic contribution. The passion, expertise and honesty that he brings to any discussion about tourism are appreciated by me. The member for Moncrieff has left the building, and his contribution made me think that if only Elvis had sung ‘Viva Australia’ maybe we would be on the map in the way Las Vegas is. It is the 30th anniversary of Elvis’s passing on 15 August this year. I am afraid that being an old rock and roll disc jockey never dies! I blame my years at MacGregor State High School, which got me started on that track.

I will now turn to the Tourism Australia Amendment Bill 2007. Like the member for Moncrieff, I want to begin by saying that the Minister for Small Business and Tourism is ideally placed. Her virtue of understanding that tourism in this country is essentially a small business enterprise is a very important element in this discussion. It is very important to know therefore that tourism is enormously disorganised. This bill is dealing with recommendations from John Uhrig’s report to do with members of the board of Tourism Australia, ministerial power, reducing the threshold of ministerial approval for contracts and so forth. It is important that there be a greater sense of accountability for the enormous amount of money that government pours into assisting the tourism industry.

There is nothing wrong with tourism being essentially a small business sector by any measure. Because of the initiative that individual small business owners bring to it and the energy and the vitality of the sector, it is important that it maintains its dynamism, but the disorganised structure of tourism does make it hard, as the member for Moncrieff said, to get consistency in the brand. Moreover, because of the marketing credentials—I will not say expertise—that I gained from Griffith University in my electorate, I know it is important that not only do we sell what Australia promises to be but we deliver and exceed expectations.

As Chair of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment, Workplace Relations and Workforce Participation, which is currently inquiring into labour shortages in the tourism sector—it is all on the Hansardthere is no difficulty in my saying that I am concerned about the long-term possibilities of tourism meeting the expectations we are creating in the market. We are fundamentally short of people who can make beds, can clean toilets in hotel rooms or can serve in restaurants. It is a point of reckoning that Tourism Australia have to get their heads around. There has to be enormously strong and organised lobbying of government to change some of the approaches we have with regard to the styles of migration to this country. There is going to be a need for us to get real about this. There is going to be a need for us to look very closely at the simple fact that when the full effects of the ‘So where the bloody hell are you?’ campaign—that is the first time I have sworn in the parliament—kick in, potentially, the tourism industry in this country will fail to cope with the extra visitor numbers. Why? Because in so many of these small businesses they are unable to attract and retain staff while the mining sector and the resources sector are sucking the tourism industry dry.

In Western Australia we have just been through Broome and Perth conducting the committee’s inquiry. We heard about the Chicken Treat store in Broome having to shut down because Cable Beach Resort opened a new restaurant and all the staff at Chicken Treat left. But it gets far worse than that. When you find entrepreneurial private business operators, who previously were trying to grow their businesses and start new opportunities, now having to go back to making beds, cooking meals and literally cleaning toilets—obviously washing their hands in between—you realise that we have a problem in that this sector may not be able to sustain itself. So the work of Tourism Australia is fundamentally important. It is absolutely vital that it is not separated too far from the whole-of-government strategies needed to accommodate the tourism industry.

I note that my very good friend and very capable colleague the member for Blair is here, and the member for Moncrieff would understand too that another fundamental potential failure in the tourism sector is not investing  properly in infrastructure. Three times a week Qantas flies direct from LA to Brisbane. When people arrive here, they hit the Gateway Arterial Road and a traffic jam—which they would not put up with in southern California—trying to get to Dreamworld, Movie World and Wet’n’Wild, all the great things located about a 30-minute drive south of Brisbane. It is a fantastic road once they get past the Gateway Arterial Road at Springwood. I do not think that is a very good start for their time in Australia.

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