Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, the Service Economy and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to have the chance to speak to the Passenger Movement Charge Amendment Bill 2008 and in particular to support the amendment that was moved by the shadow minister from the coalition. The bill that is before the House today is, in summary, a slug on the tourism industry. I am not surprised that the Minister for Resources and Energy and Minister for Tourism has not made a contribution to this debate because it seems to me that the minister is fighting on many, many fronts at the moment.

There can be no doubt at the last federal election and on the election of Rudd government, the tourism industry expected in a very formal sense that the Labor Party was saying that having the tourism minister at the cabinet table was going to mark a profound positive impact for tourism. There was an expectation from industry that with Martin Ferguson, the member for Batman, at the cabinet table, there would be a voice for the tourism industry and it would be looked after. What we see today in the chamber is a very, very different story. I am disappointed that the Minister for Tourism has not felt it necessary to contribute because what we are debating today represents a slug on Australia’s tourism industry. We know that over the forward estimates the increase of taxation on the tourism industry will be $459.3 million. That is an extra nearly half a billion dollars being slugged from the tourism industry at a time when it simply does not need this additional taxation.

Australia’s tourism industry employs about 480,000 people and generates about $23 billion worth of exports, so it is worth while recognising that it is a very meaningful contributor to Australia’s economy and a big employer. It is with profound regret that I am speaking to this bill today. That is the reason that the coalition moved this amendment. We have a very strong belief that the way to generate further exports and the way to nurture and grow an industry like Australia’s tourism industry is to provide policy support for it. The bill before the House today does the exact opposite.

My concern is also that, not only do I know that Australia’s tourism industry is still reeling from the changes that this Labor government has put in place with respect to the industry—nearly $1 billion of new taxes coupled with a real cut in funding for Tourism Australia—but we also know that they are reeling because the tourism minister in the Rudd Labor government has done a complete backflip. There was a time when Martin Ferguson, the member for Batman, actually held the view that increases in the passenger movement charge were a bad thing. I refer to a speech that he made in this very chamber on the Customs Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2003. In that debate, the now Minister for Tourism made a couple of comments that I would like to repeat to the House. When he was being at that stage very critical of the Howard coalition government, he said:

However, what the government has persistently and conveniently failed to mention to the Australian community and the travelling public is that the passenger movement charge turns a very significant, healthy profit to the Commonwealth coffers. Even before the $8 increase in 2001, the government was already creaming off around $80 million per year and putting this into consolidated revenue.

Further on in the debate he said:

The issue now is that the government, in its seven years in office, has stepped far from the original intent of the passenger movement charge and uses it as a tax to pad consolidated revenue to the tune of some $80 million per year.

Finally, in defence of the then tourism industry, he said:

When it comes to ripping off the travelling public, undermining the tourism industry and job growth and development in Australia, my criticism today is not confined to the passenger movement charge.

But that was very much a central part of his thrust.

There may be some who would say that it is very rich of the coalition to now be critical of this government’s move on the passenger movement charge.

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