Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak about one of the major issues facing my home state of Queensland—that is, preserving jobs as we recover from COVID-19. I especially want to talk about the threat to Queensland jobs in an industry that my state is known around the world for—that is, tourism. We are well-known, right around the world, for our incredible tourism icons, ranging from the Great Barrier Reef to Fraser Island to the rainforests to the outback and to many more beaches and many more other attractions as well.

The tourism industry supplies tens of thousands of jobs, right around Queensland, literally from the tip of Cape York right down to Coolangatta and all the way out west. Right now, tourism businesses and tourism workers are really hurting as a result of COVID-19 and the restrictions on people's travel, especially from international destinations.

I have met with tourism businesses and tourism workers from Cairns to the Gold Coast and everywhere in between. They've told me how hard they have found the last 12 months and how fearful they are about the conditions that lie ahead. Of course, these problems are magnified by the fact that international borders remain closed, indefinitely. None of us know when international travel will resume to Queensland or to anywhere else in Australia. For those parts of my home state which are particularly dependent on international tourists, there is a very grim future ahead.

What is an even more imminent threat is the government's impending removal of JobKeeper in only a few weeks time. The only thing that has been keeping tourism businesses and tourism jobs afloat in Queensland over the last few months is the government's JobKeeper payment. That's a payment which, it's worth remembering, is something that the federal opposition encouraged the government to do in the first instance.

We've been very supportive of the government paying JobKeeper to tourism and other businesses as an important means of keeping jobs afloat, both in the tourism industry and in other industries again. But the reality is that conditions are still very tough, particularly in the tourism industry in many parts of Queensland. Removing JobKeeper will literally ring the death knell for many tourism businesses and tourism jobs right around our state. If you listen to the government, including in question time today, everything is fine and everything is going to be fine when JobKeeper is cut off at the end of March, because the industries across the country and the economy generally are on the rebound. Every time we hear a government member say that, it demonstrates how spectacularly out of touch the government is with the real world that exists in many parts of Queensland now, particularly those parts of Queensland that rely on the tourism industry. Only a couple of weeks ago I was in Cairns with Senator Nita Green and the shadow Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, meeting with tourism businesses and tourism workers. You could literally tell the fear that these people had. They had put all of their life-savings into running a business and employing people. They had been running these businesses for decades and were now faced with imminent closure because of the government's stubbornness and refusal to extend JobKeeper where it is desperately needed.

We keep being assured by government ministers that things are on the improve and everything is going to be fine. They keep hinting at some kind of package they are going to have for the tourism industry and say that, in the meantime, everyone should be patient and put up with things as they currently stand. Again, this shows how incredibly out-of-touch the government is with what is actually happening in the real world in the Queensland tourism industry right now. We are already seeing big and small tourism businesses around Queensland laying off workers because they have no certainty about what this government is going to do once JobKeeper is finished. This isn't a matter of businesses just sitting tight, waiting until they get an announcement from the government about their future, and keeping people on. The reality is that businesses are making hard decisions right now to lay off dozens and in some cases hundreds of staff, people who have worked in the tourism industry for a very long time, who we will want working in the tourism industry when we can eventually have international tourists coming back to our country.

It is deeply unfortunate that the government just seems to think everything is going to be fine, they don't need to rush, they will get there in their own time and, in the meantime, businesses should just keep on chugging on, even though they have no revenue coming in. The reason these businesses have been able to stay afloat is that the government has been propping them up with the JobKeeper payment. The minute that is removed, in the absence of an influx of tourists, who aren't actually able to get to this country, these businesses will go to the wall and we will see even more job losses right around Queensland in this incredibly important industry.

It's not just me saying this. I noticed a report in The Sunday Mail in Queensland on the weekend headed 'How 10,000 tourism firms could go broke'. It said that recent research predicted that up to a quarter of Queensland's 40,000 tourism business could go broke as a result of the devastating impact of the coronavirus and the looming end on 28 March of the JobKeeper supplement which has helped to keep many businesses afloat. On the Gold Cost, Aquaduck Safaris has been a tourism institution for decades but the general manager, Sarah Colgate, says it is under threat. Ms Colgate says: 'It will mean job losses, especially through the winter months. The tourism industry will lose professional long-term employees.' Red Cat Adventures owner Julie Telford said the award-winning Whitsunday business would be set back years if staff were lost over the end of the subsidy. She said: 'It feels as though we are standing on the edge of a cliff not knowing if we will be pushed over it or pulled back from the brink.' In Cairns, arguably the region hardest hit by the tourism downturn, Capita Group Managing Director Peter Woodward said 96 per cent of the 187 employees of his business were receiving JobKeeper payments. He said: 'We fear that no replacement of the government funding, whether through an extension of JobKeeper or a specific tourism support package, will result in a significant reduction of our skilled workforce.' These are people on the front line who are running businesses and employing people. They are telling us that the government's decision to remove JobKeeper will mean job losses in Queensland.

It cannot be clearer to the government that we are facing a catastrophe in the Queensland tourism industry which could potentially cost tens of thousands of jobs and see thousands of business go broke. That will have a devastating impact on regional economies right around Queensland. Unfortunately, the government seem to think they can just sit back, get there in their own time and, in the meantime, these businesses should just chug along and put up with it. That is not good enough.

We need to see some urgency from this government. We need to know what they are going to be doing to make sure our tourism businesses don't fall over and we don't see tens of thousands of tourism workers lose their incomes. That would be devastating for the workers and their families. It would be devastating for regional economies where tourism is such an important industry. If we see thousands of tourism workers put out of work, that is going to mean less money in people's pockets, less money going through local shops, and we will see the spiral continue. It is absolutely critical that we hear from the government immediately about what their plan is, particularly for the tourism industry, once we see JobKeeper cut out at the end of March. The clock is ticking. We need an answer now.

Senate adjourned at 21:39