Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will respond to the second question first. It would be advantageous if the member for Melbourne Ports had the name of the spokesperson, or spokeswoman in this case, correct. It is not Laura Bingle; it is Lara Bingle. But I will accept that the member for Melbourne Ports is perhaps not as across the tourism industry as he would like to be. I would certainly be happy to give him time to catch up and get some of the names of the key players in our advertising campaign right. Apart from that small oversight, with regard to the first question about how many times the tourism minister has spoken in the parliament, I simply say that I am sure the tourism minister would treat that question seriously and appropriately and come back to the member with the number of times she has spoken. Despite my reputation in this place for having a clear focus on trivia, I do not recall the exact number of times that the tourism minister has spoken in the lower house on tourism matters. Nonetheless, one thing I can be sure of is that, even if, on a worst-case scenario, the tourism minister had only spoken once in the chamber, I know that would be one more time than we have heard from the member for Batman on the tourism industry who, as I said, time and time again goes missing in action when it comes to Australian tourism.

The simple fact is that not only does the member for Batman underscore the fact that the Australian Labor Party does not take seriously the Australian tourism industry by his lack of action in the area, but we see even further proof of the Australian Labor Party’s shoddy treatment of the Australian tourism industry by virtue of the fact that state Labor governments around the country have either not increased tourism spending in real terms or, even worse, have slashed tourism spending in real terms. That is what we have seen from the New South Wales Labor government. That is what we have seen from a Labor government that is actually coming to an election this very Saturday. Labor’s track record at a state level is one of looking at the tourism industry, one of our key industries in this country, and turning its back on the tourism industry.

In the great state of Queensland, which has such a significant reliance on the tourism industry, what we have seen from Margaret Keech, the state Labor tourism minister, is a lack of increased funding in real terms. The Commonwealth government has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in additional spending on tourism and the result of that has been that state Labor governments have walked away. That is Labor’s track record. That is what the member for Batman needs to account for. Despite the rhetoric in here and despite all of this faux concern about the Australian tourism industry, Labor’s policy on tourism is a repugnance to the tourism industry, and justifiably so, because its concern is nothing other than faux concern.

If it were real concern, we would not see ministers like Sandra Nori turning her back, slashing, burning and cutting tourism spending in the state of New South Wales. We would not see the Queensland state minister failing to increase, in real terms, spending on tourism. These will be the anchors around the neck of the Australian Labor Party, and that is why I am very pleased to highlight Labor’s faux concern to the constituents of my electorate.

In my electorate of Moncrieff, the tourism industry accounts for some 33 per cent of our local economy. That makes it exceptionally important and the single biggest driver of our local economy—some 33 per cent of it is connected to the tourism industry. It would be a very bad day indeed if the Australian Labor Party ever got their hands on the coffers of the Treasury, because we know that they would walk away from the tourism industry. The consequence would be that many Gold Coasters’ jobs and livelihoods and passion for the tourism industry would go straight out the back door. That would be the consequence of Labor in government.

Let us be clear about this: Labor would walk away from the tourism industry in the same way that they have walked away from it in New South Wales and Queensland. As a consequence, we would see jobs going out the door on the Gold Coast. So I say to all my local residents and tourism operators—many of whom engage in world’s best practice when it comes to tourism—that they should be fearful of just how savage an Australian Labor Party government would be if they ever got their hands on the Treasury coffers, because they do not take tourism seriously.

I turn now to the issue of climate change, because the member for Batman had a few comments to make on climate change, and in this regard I also have to raise my concern. The member for Batman said in his speech that there are some who would like to apply stringent safeguards and try to turn away international tourists who use, for example, jet aircraft to get to Australia—and justifiably so given the distance involved. What I would like to clearly hear from the Australian Labor Party is: who is actually pushing this hard left agenda when it comes to climate change? I am willing to give the member for Batman the benefit of the doubt. The member for Batman has made a number of comments in the past which seem to me to make some commonsense, but they stand in stark contrast to some of the loony left ideas that I have heard coming out of the Australian Labor Party.

I know that there are a number of Labor members who push very seriously, and with a straight face, an agenda that would have a significant consequence on the Australian tourism industry. I would ask whether the member for Kingsford Smith, for example, supports the notion that people should have to offset carbon emissions from flying in jet aircraft. I would not be surprised if the member for Kingsford Smith believed, as part of his personal policy platform, that those people who fly internationally on jet aircraft should have to buy carbon credits to offset their carbon emissions. I ask the Australian Labor Party: are there members of the ALP who support and believe in that? We have seen a push from the hard left of the Australian Labor Party—through the trade union movement, at an organisational level—for some of these crazy ideas for carbon offsets. This would have dire consequences for Australia’s tourism industry.

We know that there is a strong green left agenda coming out of Europe, and we know that that strong green left agenda is being picked up by elements of the Australian Labor Party. What I want to hear from the Australian Labor Party with regard to the tourism industry is: who in the Australian Labor Party is signing up to that, and what will the consequences be for Australia’s tourism industry? It is all bad news. That is very clear, because if the Australian Labor Party have the opportunity to put their hard green left agenda into policy, we would see inbound tourism numbers into this country fall, including the numbers of high-yielding tourists—the kinds of tourists that employ Gold Coasters and Australians all around this country and account for some $17 billion of exports. A very large proportion of the jobs of the 550,000 people who work in the tourism industry, and a large proportion of that export income, would be at risk if the Australian Labor Party had the opportunity to implement their hard green left agenda when it comes to climate change. In that respect, the tourism industry should be very concerned about the secret agenda that I know the Australian Labor Party have.

I now turn to the issue of rogue operators. I do share the member for Batman’s concern over some nefarious elements of the Australian tourism industry—that is, those who are engaged in rogue tour operations. In fact, I do not necessarily think that they are Australian operators. The market in which they operate is Australia, but I have reason to believe that a large number of these operators are in fact not Australian citizens. My concern is that there can be no doubt that tourists who come into Australia from overseas and are fleeced by going to the shops of rogue tour operators, perhaps paying exorbitant prices for so-called duty-free goods, will walk away with a bad taste in their mouths. They will walk away from this country thinking that it is not the great country that we know it to be. They will return home and tell their friends, their family and their work colleagues that Australia is an expensive destination and not one they should travel to.

Of particular concern to me are some anecdotal reports that I have heard that indicate that there are some elements of our source markets that travel to Australia and are told that Australia is a very dangerous country and that they should not get off the tour bus and that they should not walk away from their hotel lest they face the great and serious danger of being assaulted or something like that. These kinds of stories do irreparable harm to our international reputation. In this respect I certainly reinforce the minister’s desire and the desire of all government members of parliament for a significant clampdown on these kinds of rogue tour operators.

I welcome the proactive way in which the federal Minister for Small Business and Tourism, Fran Bailey, the member for McEwen, has worked closely with and tried to pull together her state Labor ministers—ragtag bunch that some of them are—to work together in a proactive way to ensure that we are clamping down on rogue operators. I congratulate the federal tourism minister for her great work in bringing together a task force that embraces the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, members of the ATO and members of the department of immigration, all of whom work closely with the various state police forces—and, as I believe is the case in Queensland, with the Queensland state based tourism bureaucracy—to look at the issue of rogue operators and to ensure that there is a clampdown on them. This is an important measure and it will ensure that there is a sustainable basis for the tourism industry to go forward and, most importantly, will ensure that we address the issue of rogue operators and the irreparable damage that they do.

Finally, I would like to touch on and pay tribute to a number of key individuals that I turn to on a regular basis for advice on the tourism industry—Kerry Watson; Peter Doggett and Pavan Bhatia from Gold Coast Tourism; Matt Hingerty from the Australian Tourism Export Council; and Chris Brown and Owen Johnstone Donnett from TTF. All of these individuals talk to me on a regular basis and I am grateful for their input with respect to Australia’s tourism industry.

I take tourism very seriously. The people of the Gold Coast take tourism very seriously. It is little wonder why when this services industry is generating some $17 billion worth of export income. I believe this is just the beginning. It is my sincere belief that, through a collaborative approach with the various tourism ministers and through some of these state based tourism ministers stepping up to the plate and increasing their tourism spending in the same way that the federal government has increased its tourism spending, Australia can bat well above its weight when it comes to attracting our share of inbound international tourists.

This is not to disregard our domestic tourism industry, a very important industry, and on the Gold Coast 60 per cent of our tourism comes from the drive market. But the really high-yielding tourism, the tourism that is ultimately going to generate significant export income for Australia, is of course our international tourism. In that regard, if we all work collaboratively to ensure that the state based tourism ministers and groups like Tourism Australia, the Australian Tourism Export Council and TTF develop a clear plan going forward which we can continue to build on, Australia can increase not only its share of the international market, of international tourists, but also our repeat visitor rate. All of these things will mean there are more jobs for Australians and that our export income increases from $17 billion or $18 billion to even higher amounts, and that is good news for the people of Australia.

In January, I had the unique privilege of travelling to Las Vegas. I must say that Las Vegas is an interesting city to be in, even for someone from the Gold Coast. There is one thing that is crystal clear to me: the tourism authorities in Las Vegas understand what it is that they sell and they sell it very well. In Australia, we certainly are not lacklustre when it comes to blowing our own trumpet, when it comes to the professionalism of the individuals that work in the tourism industry, especially in the upper echelon, but it is also clear to me that there are some things we can learn from a city like Las Vegas. There are some decisions that they have taken across the city that have ultimately meant that Las Vegas as a brand is in the top five brands in the world, similar to Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and those kinds of brands. That is the power of destination marketing that has been achieved by the city of Las Vegas and I believe it is the kind of aspiration that we should have for the tourism industry in Australia. I truly believe that if we remain focused on this goal, and that if we get the very best people working collaboratively, we can ensure that Australia takes its place in the world.

We must be mindful of threats to this. As I said, one of the most significant and rapidly emerging threats appearing on the horizon when it comes to the tourism industry in Australia is the climate change debate and some of the hard green left agendas being pursued within it. Make no mistake: there are elements within Europe, the United States and, unfortunately, the Australian Labor Party who would like to ensure that people do not use jet aircraft to travel. They say this is because it increases greenhouse gas emissions. I say to those people: get real, get serious, wake up and recognise that international tourists flying on jet aircraft make only a very tiny contribution to carbon emissions. The very worst thing that we could do is swallow hook, line and sinker this hard green left agenda because it would threaten to the core the viability and sustainability of Australia’s tourism industry. Having said all of that, I commend this bill to the House for the significant steps it will take to implement the recommendations of the Uhrig report. I certainly believe that the industry, and Tourism Australia as an agency, will prosper as a result of this bill being passed.

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