Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

There is a lot of common sense in the Marvel universe; I'm sure it could help the coalition from time to time!

One of the other issues which Infrastructure Australia has identified as a national infrastructure priority is a national centre of Indigenous culture and history. We can progress these things so that when people do come to Australia again they are once again wowed by the engineering ingenuity and friendliness of the Australian people.

In the meantime, many of us are holidaying at home. Myself, Jess and Leo packed the Mazda 5 in July and went to Yallingup for a week. We took long walks and visited Sunflowers Animal Farm and Farmstay and a few wineries in the Margaret River region. Hundreds and thousands of Australians are holidaying at home right now, and it's providing essential support to our tourism sector. It can't survive without that domestic market right now.

But there are some sectors of that tourism industry that are hurting more than others. I too have met with a number of tourism and travel agency businesses in my electorate of Perth. The feedback that I get, universally, is that they want certainty and they want the federal government to realise properly that they are a unique sector in terms of the crisis our country currently faces. We haven't seen any additional funding for the tourism sector since March. Indeed, one travel agent wrote to me and put it in really clear terms: 'We're not like coffee shops, restaurants and pubs, where we could "reinvent ourselves" and start selling takeaway, or clothing stores, that can switch to online sales in the interim.' They sell travel, and with planes grounded and borders closed internationally they remain at a standstill.

There have been some glimmers of light, and I commend WA Premier, Mark McGowan, on his $14.4 million package of direct support for tourism businesses and the $150 million investment in infrastructure for WA's tourism industry. They need our support now and they're going to need it for a long time to come.

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