Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the report Northern horizons—unleashing our tourism potential. Before I go on to make some remarks about the report and its significance for my electorate and the Northern Territory, I just want to acknowledge the good work of the committee and particularly the member for Leichhardt, the chair, and my friend and colleague the member for Lingiari, Warren Snowdon, the deputy chair, for their important work on this report.

The importance of tourism to the Northern Territory is massive, with 1.5 million domestic visitors and around 300,000 international visitors in 2017. In the Northern Territory, about 15½ thousand Territorians are employed either directly or indirectly in tourism, amounting to a whopping 11 per cent of the NT's total workforce. The NT government believes that tourism can be a $2.2 billion contributor to the Territory's economy by 2020, given the right support. There is no shortage of potential in northern Australia's tourism industry, and there is plenty in the Northern Territory. If managed properly, and if the challenges addressed in the report are met, Territory attractions like Uluru, Kakadu and Litchfield national parks can lead to increased international and domestic visitation, as well as more tourists returning for repeat visits.

I recently ran a tourism ideas-fest on the NT and Darwin in my electorate, where people came along and pitched their tourism ideas—and there were certainly plenty of those. But it requires investment, and it requires commitment. It requires the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, for example, to start supporting tourism in the NT.

I'm proud that a Shorten Labor government will inject $1 billion of the NAIF's funds into a northern Australia tourism infrastructure fund to provide financing and concessional loans to build new tourism infrastructure in northern Australia. We know that there is great international and domestic demand for unique cultural experiences. Obviously, the Northern Territory provides the perfect opportunity to grow the developing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tourism ventures, as do Northern Queensland and the Kimberley. This international interest in our unique cultural experiences was confirmed when I ran another event recently, a forum that looked at how we can leverage off the direct flights between Darwin and mainland China that have now begun with Donghai Airlines. We ran that event to capture the lessons learned from the first month of direct flights from Darwin to mainland China, and Chinese tourists' interest in those unique experiences was absolutely confirmed.

I note that the report made 33 well-thought-out recommendations, but I am yet to see much from the government in terms of leadership on them. Recommendation 1, for example, states that the Darwin City Deal should be progressed as a matter of urgency. The current government and the current cities minister are not showing much urgency. In fact, it has been 444 days since the MOU for a City Deal between the Commonwealth and the Northern Territory government, a City Deal for Darwin, was signed. Other jurisdictions have had their City Deal confirmed much more quickly than that. Having provided all the information that the Commonwealth needs to confirm the City Deal, we are at a loss to understand why, after 445 days, the Prime Minister is unable to get on a plane, fly past the south, get into the Territory and just sign the deal. There is a huge opportunity in Darwin for business events. So the business community in Darwin is joining the call for the Prime Minister to visit Darwin, sign the City Deal and show some sort of interest.

But we're not going to wait for the Prime Minister to grace us with his presence in Darwin; we are bringing Darwin and the Northern Territory's business community to Parliament House when we again run the Facing North evening on 19 September this year. The economic contribution that we are missing out on in, for example, business events has been estimated to be worth well over $70 million. But it could be worth much more if that City Deal was confirmed and we could get on with building some more infrastructure in our city.

I say to those listening that if you haven't visited the NT, and if you haven't got out to Kakadu, you are really missing out. As Daryl Somers once said, 'if you never never go you'll never never know'. It's as true today as it was back then. I extend an invitation to the nation to get up to the Territory and visit our iconic parks. But what I want to say to those opposite is that the cuts to Kakadu National Park have meant that, even though the brand of Kakadu is well known, it is starting to look tired. It requires some effort and some input and some priority from the federal government. I am pleased to say that during the winter recess the shadow minister for northern Australia and member for Blaxland, Jason Clare, visited the Top End not once but twice, including getting out to Jabiru and understanding a bit more about what we need to polish the jewel in the Northern Territory's tourism crown that is Kakadu. Unfortunately we can't wait until we win the lottery—like the Great Barrier Reef Foundation! We are just asking for some funding for Kakadu. It needs some federal investment. We need the cuts to national park funding to cease. We need some investment but, unfortunately, we have seen nothing so far.

Another point of feedback that I have received from the consultations I have been doing with the tourism industry in the Top End and from the surveys coming back from the Chinese tourists on the direct flights with Donghai is that they are very interested in Australia and the Top End's World War II military history. Our military heritage is of increasing importance to the Darwin economy as a new generation of Australians take a keen interest in the defence of Australia in the two world wars. In particular, they want to visit Australia's Pearl Harbor—which, of course, is our city, Darwin, the capital of the north. The bombing was across the breadth of northern Australia. We are working on developing more tourism opportunities so that Australians can come on that pilgrimage to the north and understand our World War II history and see the resilience of a people in the Top End that rebuilt Darwin not just once but twice—after the Japanese bombings and after Cyclone Tracy.

Members would have heard me speak in the past about the Rushcutter. I am happy to be able to report to the House that we succeeded in getting the Rushcutter, the World War II patrol boat, off the beach in Darwin Harbour and into a cradle. It is now out of the water and supported in a cradle. We will soon begin the restoration of that incredible piece of our maritime and military history. Again, I commend the committee and, in particular, the member for Lingiari for the work on this report, and I commend it to the House.

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