Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member very much for his question. He raises the very important question of tourism. Of course, he would know that in his own electorate—because he comes from a very beautiful part of Australia—and right around the country tourism is a very major employer. In fact, almost one in every 12 working Australians is engaged in the tourism sector or connected to the sector, and it is our largest export services industry, worth $23 billion.

He is also right that this is an industry under some pressure at the moment. The strength of the Australian dollar is making it difficult for local tourism operators and we do want to make sure that we are getting the message to Australians that they can go and look at very beautiful parts of Australia on holidays and spend their tourism dollars here. That is why the government launched in March last year the campaign from Tourism Australia that is called No Leave, No Life. I suspect there would be a number of members of this parliament, and indeed of the parliamentary press gallery, that could understand the resonance of those words: no leave, no life. We do want to see Australians using their leave. The campaign is already delivering results. Since its launch the total accumulated annual leave balance has fallen from 123 million days to 117 million days, so people are starting to use their leave, which is a good thing.

Each morning and afternoon this month as people are starting to turn their mind to what we will do at Christmas—will we work through; will we take some leave?—they will hear on radio in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth about the No Leave, No Life campaign. They will have the opportunity to win a $2,000 voucher for an Aussie holiday as part of that promotion. On 4 December the second No Leave, No Life reality TV series will run on the Seven network, showing hardworking Australians taking a holiday, so that is another promotion venture to get people out and about. I am advised that the last time there was such a reality TV program it attracted 1.1 million viewers.

Apart from getting Australians to holiday at home, we do want to get people from overseas coming here to our country, and that is why excitement is being generated around Oprah Winfrey coming to broadcast her very successful TV show from Australia, which is making a difference. The simple fact is that we made an investment of $1.5 million in this visit and it has already generated over $17 million worth of free advertising in Australia to talk to people about Australia.

These are the promotional endeavours we are engaged in, but of course every member of parliament can play their part by picking up on the No Leave, No Life campaign and talking to their constituents about the importance of a holiday and the wonderful ways of having a holiday here in Australia.

See this speech in context