George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

As the member for Goldstein quipped to me during the last speech, that's the kind of speech you get when your seat has become reliant on Green votes and you've become reliant on Green votes to actually get across the line. It's very, very sad, because the bill before us is quite an important bill. This is all about providing a remedy for the plight of tourism operators in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. What we just heard is a return to arguments of the past and divisions of the past; and I'm referring not just to divisions in this place but also to divisions among local workers, local industry, local jobs, local farmers and local tourism operators. It is an argument of the past, an argument that we as a government are leaving behind because we are on the side of tourism workers and tourism businesses.

I am so disappointed that the main Labor speaker here, the member for Griffith, would come forward with this speech—and with motions and amendments—that is all about politics. She talks about not politicising the reef. I don't know what that amendment and that speech are if they aren't politicising the reef. Goodness me, to put in a do-nothing amendment like that to a bill that is about assisting tourism workers and tourism businesses really does beggar belief. I'm so passionate about this, because this change, this relief to tourism operators that goes on to help tourism workers, actually came from my electorate, from the Dawson electorate. It had a lot of support. I didn't see too many people on the other side of the chamber—I didn't see the member for Griffith—arguing the case for tourism operators at the time. The people who were advocating for that were me, the member for Leichhardt, the member for Herbert, the member for Flynn, the member for Capricornia and the member for Wide Bay—all of those up and down the coast of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park area. We know how many businesses rely on this great asset and how many workers rely on jobs from that great asset.

I went in to bat for tourism operators that were saying, as this pandemic rolled out, 'We need to waive the reef tax', otherwise known as the Great Barrier Reef Environmental Management Charge. That tax, sadly, has gone up and up and has become a massive impost on tourism operators. I think it needs to be looked at in the future to see whether it actually continues or not. But, for now, what we did initially was suspend that tax for the rest of the year. I was at a meeting where the Minister for the Environment actually announced this to Whitsunday tourism operators, and they were so enthralled at the decision that the room burst into applause. That was what this measure would do for the tourism operators. It was so good they burst into applause. Actually, as it turned out, a week later the whole industry pretty much had been shut down because of the pandemic, so this measure probably wasn't saving them much at all because no-one was going out to the reef.

I went in and fought to have this decision backdated to 1 January. It took a while to get there because it had to be legislated, as we're doing right now. But, the day that it happened, I got this letter from the Whitsunday Charter Boat Industry Association, who were the crew that were advocating for this, so that I could advocate for it; they came to me with all the information that led to this decision here today. This shows how grassroots politics—businesses, workers and individuals actually getting involved—can actually facilitate major change like what's before us today. This group from Airlie Beach did it.

What they wrote to me, the Minister for the Environment, the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment, the Deputy Prime Minister and the member for Leichhardt was this: 'I'm writing to you both personally and on behalf of the Whitsunday Charter Boat Industry Association to offer our sincere and heartfelt thanks for the support you have shown to our industry in what will be long remembered as one of its darkest of times. The announcement yesterday of a backdate in the environmental management charge (EMC) waiver to 1 January, and the $3 million in further relief for our industry that this will mean, could not have come at a more opportune moment. An increasing amount of economic studies are putting the Whitsundays and its marine tourism industry at the top of Australia's list of regions and business sectors that have been severely affected by COVID-19.

'Even prior to the pandemic we were still reeling from the impacts of Tropical Cyclone Debbie and a cluster of shark attacks. Notwithstanding this, our region and our industry has continued to account for over 40 per cent of the $6.3 billion, 64,000-job Great Barrier Reef tourism sector. Our contribution is estimated at over $2.8 billion. We carry one million passengers per year into the Whitsundays section of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. In short, we are worth saving, and yesterday's announcement demonstrates your clear understanding of that. As you know, operators will only begin to realise the benefit from the initial EMC waiver from 1 April to 31 December 2020 once business resumes. Without customers, there is no EMC paid, which under these waiver provisions operators will be able to use as much-needed cash flow.'

She goes on to thank the government for backdating it and listening to the industry on what was needed. And it really is needed, because, again, with what we just heard in the last contribution to this debate, there was hardly mention of the plight of tourism businesses; it was all politics. There were old arguments about funding to foundations and old arguments trying to separate one industry from another industry and so on. But what wasn't mentioned was the fact that in the Whitsundays right now 100 per cent of tourism businesses are directly impacted by this Wuhan coronavirus pandemic; 118 businesses have actually suspended operations within the Whitsundays. Over 3,000 jobs have been lost in the Whitsundays because of this event. Almost 30,000 room nights have been cancelled. Almost 24,000 tours and activities have been cancelled. The total estimated dollar value of cancellations caused directly by this event and the bushfires is around $150 million—to a single community. It is unbelievable.

They are staggering figures, and this is part of the reason we have built up this COVID-19 relief and recovery fund that has helped do things like provide this extra environmental management charge relief to tourism operators. It is something that has been very well received. And lest we think that this is just a little kick in the can for the industry, I can tell you that it's worth tens of thousands to businesses, who are suffering on a number of fronts. It is not just because they don't have customers walking in the door at the moment. If I can segue into one area that is impacting on the financial viability of tourism businesses right now, it's the fact that we've got all of these online booking agents that are withholding funds for tours that have been conducted for tourism operators right now. I'm not going to go too in-depth into this, because the industry is trying to sort it out and doesn't want the issue made bigger than it is, for them to sort out. But the fact is that they are hurting quite badly because we have booking agencies—a lot of them foreign owned—that are just not handing over the funds for tours that have actually been conducted. So, we've got tourism operators that are, again, tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket.

So this money that we are providing—handing back this environmental management charge for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to the operators—is a godsend; it really is. It's going to mean the difference between businesses shutting up shop and staying open. It's going to mean the difference between people keeping jobs in the Whitsundays, in Cairns, down at Yeppoon and probably at Gladstone and in so many other places. It really is a godsend.

I want to state my position on a few other things that will assist the tourism industry beyond this. As I said at the start of this, I think there needs to be a severe review of this environmental management charge going into the future. The EMC started off as a buck, mind you—one buck, as I understand it—and that dollar that was charged for each night or each time that a tourist went out onto the reef went into a consolidated fund that basically spent money on infrastructure and projects that the industry wanted to see happen. It's really, really gone way away from its original intent. It is now just basically a tax that goes to fill the coffers of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, and, as good a job as they do, it really has gone against the initial intent, which was about projects and infrastructure that the industry said were needed.

So we either need to get back to the original intent of the program and what its funding was for, or we need to get rid of it altogether—one of the two. Because the Great Barrier Reef, as so many people like to say, is a national asset. Why then should businesses that are in the Great Barrier Reef be the ones that are slugged with the bulk of the administration of the asset? It's a national asset. The nation should pay and it should come out of the normal consolidated revenue rather than as a direct tax for the industry.

It might be an ambit claim to have businesses that are getting the benefit of the reef to not pay anything, but I'm putting it anyway, and I dare say that the least that can happen is a severe reduction in this charge and a reorientation of the funds that come out of this charge to actual tourism infrastructure and tourism projects within the Great Barrier Reef area. That is what it was initially designed to do. I've got the paperwork—the letters from ministers, the press releases, the reports and all the rest of it—to prove that fact. But, like with so many other programs, they just go every which way but loose as time goes on.

I'm already on the record saying this publicly, so I'll say it again right now: we will need to keep supports in place for the tourism sector beyond September. That is quite clear to me. We're talking about a continuation of JobKeeper and a continuation of cashflow for businesses supports. We're probably talking about a replenishment of the COVID-19 Relief and Recovery Fund in order to continue to allow businesses and sectors to apply for relief for things like rates, insurance and all the other charges they go through. There will need to be a bit of leaning by the government on the banks to continue supporting businesses that are not back to normal as a result of this pandemic.

Certainly in the tourism sector they will not be back to normal. There are businesses in the tourism sector, particularly in the Whitsundays, that are completely and utterly geared towards the international market. The don't get much domestic clientele. It will be very difficult, if not impossible, for them to re-gear themselves to the domestic market. The domestic market is, despite all the best intentions, probably going to be lukewarm, because consumer confidence is low because of this pandemic. I wish it were higher, and I encourage people to holiday in the Great Barrier Reef communities and in the Whitsundays, but it's probably going to be lukewarm. If we just simply divert all businesses, including those that are now pretty much fixed on international, into the domestic market, we could oversaturate it, leading to a situation where nobody wins in the tourism sector.

Really, there needs to be that absolute continuation of support, if your income has dipped or turnover has dipped below 30 per cent. A lot of them will have dipped below 30 per cent and will continue to be below 30 per cent, not only as we open up the domestic borders—which should have happened a long time ago; that's one of the things hampering domestic tourism at the moment—but with the international borders closed and, beyond that, with commercial flights not getting back into full swing, and, beyond that even more, there is local consumer confidence in international travel. We really do need to wait for these things to be cleared before we let people get back to situation normal.

Thank you very much. I'm very pleased that this bill supports tourism workers and tourism businesses in the Whitsundays.

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