Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to acknowledge and bring to the House the issue of the dire financial situation facing our travel agents and the tourism industry in general, as a result of Australia's health and economic crisis at this point. Travel agents play a significant role in our tourism industry, sustaining businesses and employing thousands of people across Australia. We know that tourism was one of the hardest-hit industries and will be likely to be one of the last to recover. For many of our approximately 40,000 travel agents around the country, the cost of staying open in order to reimburse people and to rearrange flights that have been cancelled is an enormous cost to them—work that they're doing without a profit.

International travel ceased overnight, basically. We know that, without the commissions from international travel, travel agents are earning very little—in fact, nothing. We need the government to provide an urgent lifeline for travel agents, who are on the brink of collapse, instead of the inadequate loss carry-back scheme, for which the vast majority of travel agents appear to be ineligible. In April, overseas arrivals and departures virtually ceased. They plunged by 99.7 per cent. You can imagine being a travel agent in a business that relies solely on commissions from tickets and having 99.7 per cent of your business cease overnight. As a result, cash dried up for travel agents. Some in the sector are saying that it could take until mid-2025 for the sector to get back to prepandemic levels, if it does get back.

I've spoken to many travel agents in my electorate. They are extremely worried about the future and the future of this sector. Our economy cannot afford to lose so many small businesses and business people from our community. Let's not forget that 70 per cent of international travel in Australia is done and booked through travel agents, which keeps money here in Australia, here in our communities and here in our own states. JobKeeper has certainly assisted and has been of some assistance, but now it's tapering off and the government has no plan to extend it beyond March 2021. That's just too soon for many businesses, especially travel agents, whose businesses are unlikely to pick up anytime soon.

The question remains: what will happen to these businesses after the payments cease? I recently tabled a motion in the House calling on the government to develop a comprehensive industry-specific support package for the travel industry which acknowledges the important contribution the sector makes to the economy. We must provide better support— (Time expired)

See this speech in context