Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Resources and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

The $4 million allocated at my meeting in Queensland last Wednesday is allocated to Queensland. There was a serious problem confronting the Queensland tourism industry and that is why there was a very constructive meeting, held in the offices of Tourism Queensland, which involved not only me but also my counterpart, the Queensland Minister for Tourism, Regional Development and Industry, and also Tourism Australia. It is not just a question of the $4 million put on the table for Queensland by the Australian government, part of which could go to actually getting people to sit down and think about a new strategy for Northern Queensland. It is also my intention that some of that go to Tourism Australia for the purposes of facilitating further marketing, especially marketing principally concentrated on Queensland, which goes hand in glove with the endeavours of the Queensland government to think about whether or not they can get other international carriers to come into Cairns—not just Japanese carriers but also other carriers such as Garuda. The money can therefore be allocated for the purposes of trying to piggyback additional marketing capacities for those airlines who might be interested in Cairns to actually get a better bang for the dollar in those markets. As the member for Moncrieff understands, that is how Tourism Australia operates. Do not just look at the advertising budget of Tourism Australia, which was not reduced in the recent budget; also look at the strategic relationships that develop with other players in the market, such as Qantas and all those other international carriers, for the purposes of trying to promote Australia in overseas markets.

I must say that I was pleased to see the new strategic marketing relationship developed with Film Australia and the 20th Century Fox operation in terms of trying to piggyback that operation to assist not only Cairns but the tourism industry generally—which goes to the question of Parramatta.

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