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

My question is to the Minister for Resources and Energy and Minister for Tourism. Will the minister advise the House of any initiatives to encourage Australians to assist the Australian tourism industry by having a holiday at home?

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hockey interjecting

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

I will give you a deal you can’t resist, Joe! I thank the member for Leichhardt for the question, because the member for Leichhardt actually represents a seat which depends on a key part of the Australian economy—the tourism sector. To be fair to the member for North Sydney, he understands the importance of the tourism industry, as he was the responsible minister who put the white paper in place and established Tourism Australia to try and create new opportunities for Australian tourism in the 21st century.

In context, can I remind the House that for the first time ever the tourism industry is actually starting to think about itself as a key part of the Australian economy. For far too long it was just regarded as an add-on. Tourism opportunities were not really seen as being part of the Australian workforce or a sizeable section of the Australian economy. The facts are that it actually directly employs 480,000 Australians and represents 3.7 per cent of Australia’s GDP.

But when you look back over recent years you wonder when the tourism industry is going to be able to escape some of the challenges that it has had—the international difficulties of September 11, the threat of terrorism, the issue of SARS and the threat of bird flu. Domestically, we had the collapse of Ansett. More recently, I think about the difficulties we have confronted internationally with the price of oil and the strength of the Australian dollar. For example, 10 years ago no Australian thought about going to Japan to have a skiing holiday over the Christmas-New Year period. All of a sudden those things started to fall right for the Australian tourism industry and, in this context, a weakening of the dollar is good for industry. The price of oil came down, but then we were confronted by a global financial crisis.

That effectively means that there is going to be no immediate turnaround in our international numbers, as the member for Cook, a former CEO of Tourism Australia, would appreciate. It is the responsibility of Tourism Australia to work to maintain a presence in those markets as we go through the current global financial crisis. I therefore remind the House of the comments made by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition this morning in their Christmas valedictories. In a serious way they talked about not just us and our staff having a holiday or a break over this Christmas-New Year period but Australians at large thinking about how they can have a break and help fellow Australians.

It is the responsibility of the tourism industry, in association with employer organisations, to start thinking through a strategy which facilitates people to focus on the need for a break from work and overcoming the stress of not only work but life in general. I ask Tourism Australia to start discussing more rigorously with key employer organisations such as ACCI how they can lift up a campaign that was in its infancy some years ago called ‘No leave, no life’. They will be hosting a roundtable in Sydney next week to start working out a concerted strategy in association with employers to concentrate on this initiative.

This is exceptionally important because, as I said to the House last week, Australian workers have been allowed to accumulate 121 million days of accrued leave and the estimated wage value of that accrued leave is around $31 billion. Perhaps more importantly, a study commissioned by Tourism Australia found around 40 per cent of employees cited workplace issues as the most significant barriers to taking leave. In this instance they have accumulated annual leave and long service leave. It is the responsibility of management to think about how they manage their workforce. It is also smart, given the increase in wages, to actually get this liability off their books. With increases in wages and salaries the liability increases over time, so it is not smart for an employer to allow this accumulation of annual leave and long service leave.

For those reasons, and with the approach of Christmas and the New Year period and as the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition said this morning, we have got to do what we can to encourage all Australians who can manage it and afford it to have a holiday at home. That means in a lot of ways you are helping a lot of small and medium sized businesses who are doing it very tough at the moment. Last week the National Tourism Alliance, with whom I meet on a regular basis, reminded me that tourism is a robust industry and it will get through this difficulty yet again. The Economic Security Strategy, which kicks in next week, also has the potential to assist the industry because it has to compete for the disposable dollar. It is about families thinking about having a few days or a week away, thinking about going to a restaurant or a theme park or one of our national landscape opportunities, such as the Alps, the Green Cauldron on the Northern Rivers of New South Wales, the Great Ocean Road and the Flinders Ranges in South Australia. There is a host of opportunities in Australia to have that break from work and also assist in maintaining the viability of the Australian tourism industry and a lot of small and medium sized businesses who are looking for a helping hand in this very difficult period.

The Australian tourism industry stands to gain from this initiative. If we can just unlock a small proportion of the 121 million days of accrued leave and turn it into an Australian holiday experience, we will potentially make a significant contribution to domestic tourism, help support small and medium sized businesses and help Australia through this global financial crisis. The onus is on each and every one of us to help our mates in a tough period. I commend the ‘No leave, no life’ campaign to the Australian community.