Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, you wouldn't want to be a tourism operator in the Blue Mountains or a travel agent in the Hawkesbury holding out for some extra support from this week's budget, because it wasn't there. There was nothing to support major attractions like Scenic World, who have to keep equipment maintained and safe until overseas visitors return. Nor was there support for travel agents, who are now being told that it will be another year before they can expect their customers to be able to go overseas, thanks to a broken promise of a quick vaccination program and a failed quarantine scheme. The businesses and workers in my community have survived fire and flood—twice—and pandemic, with small businesses hanging on by the skin of their teeth. Those are their words, not mine. And don't tell me that bushfire recovery money is there, because so little of it hit the ground in the last year that I can count on two fingers the number of businesses that'll be able to expand their tourism offerings as a result of that so-called local economic support.

For the Hawkesbury region—the region that has had its new much-touted flood-free bridge go under—there's no indication of additional money to do a decent job on the North Richmond duplication project for that bridge, or for improved evacuation routes to take people east to safety. And where is our Hawkesbury headspace? It didn't happen as a result of the last budget and it has not been announced in this one either. It's not going too far to say that lives have been lost because of the failure of this government to deliver decent mental health services to this community.