Mark Baker (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

They dropped the ball on tourism. And the federal government has put millions of dollars into tourism not only in Tasmania but all over the country.

I want to expand on the member for Gorton’s proposed visit to my electorate. I hope he sits down with the farming community and all the agricultural contractors and asks them about their feelings on the new Work Choices legislation. There will be one system nationwide and they will not have to deal with four different jurisdictions and rules, regulations and award systems when they move from Tasmania to Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. The system has been a complete and utter mess and a nonsense. It just shows you how out of touch Labor is with the reality of business. Members on this side of the House come from 48 different occupations and members on the other side come from—I will be kind—fewer than 10 occupations. That is a classic example of why they do not understand how business works and operates.

This government has created 1.7 million new jobs in the last 10 years. We have record low interest rates and inflation steady at around two to three per cent and more and more people buying their own homes. And they talk about this government being out of touch! Before I was elected, I was in the workforce and I witnessed the pain of extraordinarily high interest rates and record bankruptcies. The opposition need to talk to business people and employees in the workplace.

While the loss of Spirit III would be a psychological blow, I believe the critical issue is not about the future of any particular mode of transport but about ensuring that people continue to come to the great state of Tasmania. That is borne out by last year’s report by the Tasmanian government’s own Treasury department, which found that the mode of transport used by tourists to travel to the state is not of particular significance to the majority of the tourism industry. It is important that the state government put in place a plan to attract tourists to Tasmania. Instead of continually blaming the federal government and putting its hand out, the Tasmanian government should start taking some responsibility. Whether it is health, business, education, investing in our schools or investing in our roads, the state Labor governments are incompetent. It is about time they recognised their failings and learnt how to do business from the federal government. (Time expired)

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