Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors, Tourism and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There could be no clearer example of the Rudd Labor government’s hypocrisy when it comes to apparently being supportive of Australia’s $85 million tourism industry than its actions at this very point in time, a time when this industry is most in need. Australia’s tourism industry employs some 480,000 Australians. It generates in excess of $20 billion in export earnings. Yet it is an industry that the Rudd Labor government has treated as a cash cow.

The Tourism Forecasting Committee recently revised down forecasts for growth in inbound visitor arrivals for 2008 to zero. I repeat: zero. The Minister for Tourism has been travelling around Australia talking to tourism operators and others involved in the industry and saying, for example, as he did on the ABC’s PM interview with Mark Colvin on 28 July 2008:

The tourism industry is actually doing it very tough at the moment.

Further, on 19 June 2008, in answer to a question without notice, the minister said:

I also appreciate that the tourism industry today is going through a huge challenge both domestically and internationally.

Finally, on 30 July 2008—and I notice that ‘Scooter’, or I should say the member for Leichhardt, is in the chamber today—it was reported in the Cairns Post:

Tourism Minister Martin Ferguson admitted the Australian tourism industry was struggling in a tough market.

So we have all these sorts of claims from the Minister for Tourism—and I notice the member for Leichhardt nodding his head in agreement—that the tourism industry is doing it tough. We know the tourism industry, this $85 billion industry for Australia that employs some 480,000 Australians, is doing it tough.

And what is the Rudd Labor government’s solution for an industry that is doing it tough? What would you expect of a government when an industry is on its knees, battling a high Aussie dollar, battling extremely competitive destinations? What would you expect a government to do? You might say ‘a tax break’. You might say ‘tax relief’. You might say ‘extra investment in the industry’. But what did the Rudd Labor government do that the member for Leichhardt is going to stand up and defend today? It introduced $1 billion in new tourism taxes. That is the record of the Rudd Labor government. That is what the member for Leichhardt dares to come into this chamber to defend: $1 billion in new tourism taxes on an industry that is already on its knees—and that is acknowledged by the tourism minister himself.

Indeed, the minister went to Leichhardt in Far North Queensland, as I have done twice this year so far, to talk to local tour operators—and let me share something with the member for Leichhardt: they are not happy with you, member for Leichhardt. They not happy with the member for Leichhardt because all they get from him is Canberra’s voice in Cairns, not Cairns’s voice down here, not a representative for those tour operators who are literally withering on the vine at the moment because they have been slugged with $1 billion in new tourism taxes. No, what they hear from the member for Leichhardt—as they are about to hear again tonight—is a withering defence of this government’s appalling track record when it comes to the tourism industry.

That is the reason why the first limb of this motion tonight is to condemn the Rudd Labor government for abandoning the tourism industry in its time of need—and they are not simply my words; they are the words of the tourism minister himself, a man who is a fair-weather friend. When it suits the two of them—when the minister is with the operators, just like the member for Leichhardt—they are out there saying to the industry, ‘We know you’re doing it tough and we’re here for you.’ But what do they do? They slug them with $1 billion in new taxes. That is their track record and, for that, they should be ashamed.

The second limb of the motion is to note the negative impact that the Rudd Labor government’s decision to reduce funding for Tourism Australia by $5.9 million in real terms will have on the tourism industry. As I said, we already know that this Labor government has actually imposed a billion dollars of new taxes on an industry that is doing it tough. But, to rub salt into the wound, this is the same government that has now slashed funding for Tourism Australia by $5.9 million in real terms. There are all these brand-spanking-new ads that the minister loves to roll out and talk about, about how this is going to lure tourists back to Australia and about how it is going to excite and mobilise the people of Australia to travel domestically. Guess what: there is now $5.9 million less available to actually promote tourism in this country.

The third limb recognises that the Rudd Labor government’s $940 million of new tourism taxes will adversely affect the 483,000 Australians employed in the tourism industry. I will read some interesting quotes, again by the Minister for Tourism. He said:

… we have had the tourism industry used to pad the government’s budget bottom line … through the increase in the passenger movement charge, which is ripping off the travelling public …

Or perhaps this, again said by the tourism minister:

I believe that the tourism industry is vital to the economic wellbeing of Australia and does not deserve to be hit by unnecessary taxes. The tax burden that faces the industry due to the GST is well documented. But what is worse is that the government is failing to rule out an increase in the passenger movement charge to pay for the much needed funding boost for the tourist industry.

Someone logical might think that this is a robust defence by the Minister for Tourism, talking about how any increase in the passenger movement charge is ‘ripping off the travelling public’ and how these taxes were ‘used to pad the government’s budget bottom line’. Unfortunately, what I speak of here is nothing but rank hypocrisy by the Labor tourism minister. It is rank hypocrisy, because these comments were from 5 March 2003 and 12 February 2003, comments that the now tourism minister made when he dared to attack the previous coalition government’s track record on tourism.

I am certainly more than willing to stand in this chamber today and make it very clear that, yes, there were occasions in the past when the Howard government did increase the passenger movement charge. But the key and fundamental difference is that the then coalition government supported the tourism industry with real funding increases and provided massive injections of funding for increased marketing, a restructuring of Tourism Australia and a tourism white paper. That was the coalition’s track record. So, if there were increases in the passenger movement charge, it was made sure that that money was channelled straight back to the tourism industry, and that stands in such stark contrast to Labor.

I look forward to hearing the member for Leichhardt dare to defend not only the hypocrisy of the tourism minister but also the utter hypocrisy of the Labor government, which has turned its back on these sentiments and imposed $1 billion of new tourism taxes—$459 million through the passenger charge increase, $300 million through the Tourism Refund Scheme and $179.4 million of new taxes through increased tourism visas. This makes a grand total of $938.7 million of brand-new tourism taxes imposed by the Rudd Labor government and imposed by the Labor tourism minister, who only a matter of years ago dared to question the previous government’s commitment to tourism because we increased these amounts, but we also provided in the tourism white paper additional funding for Tourism Australia.

The fourth limb acknowledges that, in the new spirit of cooperative federalism that we hear so much about from the Labor Party, many state Labor governments have decided to follow the example set by the federal Labor government and are also reducing their support for the tourism industry. As I have said, we have seen $5.9 million axed from Tourism Australia’s budget by the Labor government, but we see across the board, over the period from 2001 to 2008-09, decreases—or I should say slashes—in tourism funding that amount to a cut in South Australia of 46 per cent, a cut in New South Wales of 28 per cent, a cut in the ACT of 10 per cent and a cut in Queensland of nine per cent. That is Labor’s record: slashed support for the tourism industry of between nine per cent, in Queensland, and 46 per cent, in South Australia.

So I say to the member for Leichhardt: stop being an apologist for your Rudd government back in Leichhardt. Recognise that your industry is doing it tough and for once have the spine, the backbone, to stand up for those operators in your electorate that are doing it so very tough, as they are across Australia. Recognise that this Rudd Labor government’s record and the Minister for Tourism’s record on their lack of support for tourism deserve to be condemned. Any government that imposes $1 billion of new taxes and slashes funding by $5.9 million deserves to have it very loudly made known to tourism operators that it has not stood by the industry. The government have walked away from the industry. In walking away from the industry they have consigned many people to the unemployment scrapheap.

Jim Turnour (Leichhardt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The tourism industry is a very important industry to the Australian economy, not only in our big cities but also in our regional areas. It is great to be here tonight with the member for Forde, who I know is a strong proponent of the tourism industry in his local electorate and his local region, as I am a strong proponent of the tourism industry in my region of tropical North Queensland and the great city of Cairns.

I am not sure which mushroom the shadow minister for tourism has been hiding under in bringing this motion forward, but it is a pretty outrageous motion, particularly considering the current economic climate facing the tourism industry in this country and some of the tough times it has gone through. I know that what the tourism industry thrives on is confidence. What it is looking for from the government—and, one would hope, from the opposition—is some sort of support for the industry in the form of continuing to work with it and developing confidence in it.

To suggest that the Rudd government is doing nothing to support the tourism industry is really a shameful act by the shadow minister, as is bringing this motion here tonight. We only have to look at the actions of the Rudd government to see that in the short term we are working with industry, with the release of our new campaign, through Tourism Australia, built off the Australia movie. I think it is a fantastic campaign. I hear positive feedback about it from the tourism industry in my local area. We are showing through our National Long-Term Tourism Strategy that we are committed to ensuring that we have a long-term plan for the tourism industry in this country. So we are working in the short term as well as in the long term.

We have a national aviation strategy. Aviation is critically important to tourism in this country and we are going to build support for the aviation industry going forward. We are also moving forward on a process of national accreditation to ensure that the industry provides the highest level of service to tourists when they come to this country. The government have also been proactively managing the Approved Destination Status scheme, recently suspending companies from the scheme due to immigration and quality-of-tourism breaches.

The government is also undertaking a range of microeconomic reform to support small businesses, the backbone of the tourism industry. They have been struggling with the skills crisis. They are looking for a government to invest in infrastructure. They are looking for a government that provides some certainty in industrial relations and gets the balance right. We are doing that. We have tackled some of the immigration bottlenecks that built up under the former Howard government and prevented the industry from getting skilled workers. We are dealing with some of the red tape issues in areas like superannuation.

I tell you that in my area tourism is built on natural icons, like it is in many parts of Australia. I see the member for Forde here, who I am sure would agree. People are looking for a government that is going to tackle climate change and take this issue seriously, because it is a real threat to our natural icons and to our tourism industry.

I mentioned the National Long-Term Tourism Strategy. The National Long-Term Tourism Strategy will provide long-term vision for the tourism industry. It will establish the basis for consistent, long-term policy engagement with the tourism industry by successive governments. It is aimed at strengthening the tourism industry supply side capacity and maximising the net economic benefits to industry in Australia. The tourism strategy, like the government, is focused very much on working with the industry. We have taken a bipartisan approach. We have put together the strategy, and I congratulate the minister for it. Margaret Jackson is the chair of the steering committee. Members include people who have supported the opposition, such as Matt Hingerty. We are not taking a partisan approach to tourism. We are looking to work with the industry in partnership to build it into the longer term.

I talked about the Australia campaign that was released recently. This is a fantastic initiative by Tourism Australia. I want to congratulate Geoff Buckley, his board and his team on bringing it together. This ‘come walkabout’ campaign not only builds on the natural icons that we have in this country but also links in with some of the challenges that people find in their busy everyday lives and how they look to go on holidays to seek to find themselves and, in finding themselves, to have more rewarding lives. I think Tourism Australia have done fantastic work. I was at the Tourism Tropical North Queensland awards on Saturday night. They played the advertisement there and it received a huge round of applause. Rob Giason, the local TTNQ CEO, wanted to play it again later. The industry is really looking forward to gaining leverage off this campaign to attract tourists back to Australia.

The member opposite talked about tourism operators and made some disparaging comments about this government, but the feedback I get from operators is very positive—although they have commented on some of the previous campaigns. One of the big operators in my electorate, Mr Charles Woodward, said the former government’s campaign through Tourism Australia, the ‘Where the bloody hell are you’ campaign, was a complete disaster, particularly in markets like Japan. And you might ask: ‘Where the bloody hell has the shadow minister been bringing this sort of motion forward? Where the bloody hell has he been? Hiding under a mushroom?’ Mr Woodward said that it was essential that Australia got back to basics and focused on nature based tourism.

The Australia campaign, through Tourism Australia, not only focuses on those natural icons but also links in with people’s busy lives. The campaign is going to be delivered across Europe and America, and the eastern nations will be promoting and delivering that campaign. The industry is very supportive of it, as I have said. The advertisement on the internet has had some fantastic hits and it was also presented at the recent tourism awards in Cairns.

I can assure you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that coming from an electorate like Leichhardt, where tourism is particularly important to the local economy, I do understand how important it is to have the government supporting the tourism industry. The industry in my local community is worth $2.8 billion. We had 4.2 million visitors who were drawn to the region last year, and there are 7,100 tourism related businesses in my local area. We have some fantastic tourism hubs, whether in my local town of Cairns, or Kuranda, Port Douglas, Cooktown or all the way up to the Torres Strait. We have some fantastic towns that depend on tourism, and they deliver some fantastic experiences. The region offers an array of experiences to visitors, including outdoor adventures, the outback, culture and heritage and Indigenous culture, as well as food and wine. There is increasing development in agricultural tourism, and of course we have the rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef.

Clearly, tourism is fundamental to Cairns and tropical North Queensland. It is particularly important to me and to the Minister for Tourism. We took a hit this year with the decision by Qantas to cut flights between Japan and Cairns in December. That is going to impact on our local industry. We are going to lose 62 per cent of total flight capacity out of Japan later this year. Estimates are that it is going to cost the industry around $100 million. I met with the Minister for Tourism on the day that that happened, and we discussed the issue. I worked with the local tourism industry through TTNQ, and I congratulate Rob Giason and his team for the work that they have done in working with us and with the Queensland government. We will continue to work with them with our $4 million package to support the industry through these difficult times.

We have already announced $750,000 in marketing support for charter flights from Cairns to Japan and from Japan to Cairns. We want to ensure that the industry is well placed to deal with the cutback later this year. We are putting in place some short-term support for the industry, particularly in terms of marketing and support for charters. We are also working to make sure that the industry is supported into the longer term. We have some work happening and we are working with the industry in developing that with some research and analysis to ensure that we are well placed to take advantage of developing markets, whether they are in Korea, China or India.

The Prime Minister has taken a direct interest in tourism in my electorate, and he was particularly interested in ensuring that we responded appropriately following those Qantas cuts. He rang me from Japan. He took a real interest in how our package was going down in tropical North Queensland. And I know the industry has appreciated not only the minister’s interest—he has been up there twice in the last couple of months to meet with the industry and discuss our package—but also, as I have said, the Prime Minister’s interest. As I said—(Time expired)

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired.