Damian Drum (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to commend Mr Georganas for putting this motion before the House. It is certainly timely. This is a genuine industry that has effectively come to fore of the government's understanding. The government understands that it does have specific needs.

Recently I had the opportunity to host around 10 travel agents in my electorate office. I heard firsthand how they have effectively had to work for the last 12 months whilst international travel, where they make all their money—they make very little money from domestic traffic—shut. They have had to continue working because around $4 billion of Australians' money was stuck somewhere—maybe in an airline's account, or some overseas travel agent's or tour operator's account or in some accommodation house's account. All this money has, effectively, had to be reprocessed back, either to be refunds or in the form of credits. This has been through the tireless work of these travel agents, effectively working for nothing. They are very grateful for the support of JobKeeper; in fact, JobKeeper is keeping them in business.

However, JobKeeper is fine for their wages but they're also going to need additional help in relation to paying their utilities and their other ongoing expenses. That's why, in fact, the government put $128 million on the table to assist. Yes, as a previous speaker said, there was a large cohort of these travel agents who put in conflicting amounts for their turnover, GST or commissions. Those who put their total turnover in were compensated in what I would say was the right amount, but those other two categories have been left out. The government is moving to assist those travel agents because the government understands that this is a critical industry and that if we don't offer them the assistance that they need then they will go to the wall.

This industry needs to be commended. The main issue of the travel agents who I spoke to—their sole issue—is to look after their clients, to make sure that more of that $4 billion that is still sitting overseas somewhere, or is sitting with an Australian airline company, or is in the form of credits or potential refund money does in fact find its way back. If these tour operators, travel agents, effectively go out of business because we can't get the right assistance to them, then we're going to have a whole cohort of Australians who are not going to be able to be quite sure who it is that's going to help them get their refund or get their credits lined up for when we go into the future.

It is an amazing industry. There's a wealth of knowledge tied up in this industry. These people love their work. They love their work, primarily because so they make so many Australians very, very happy with being able to organise their tours and organise their holidays. It is an industry where you're finding that they are put into a very, very difficult situation now. They get their commissions at the time of the holiday but the bookings are made many months in advance, so they find themselves in a very difficult position. They do need additional assistance. I'm sure we are looking forward to announcements into the future.

Firstly, getting this $60 million-odd, that's still outstanding, from the rescue package that was put in place by the government. The first thing we need to do is get that sorted out so that our travel agents can, in fact, get the money that the government intends them to receive. Then we need to look at how we're going to continue that support so that this particular industry, the travel agency sector, can maintain its workload into the future so that it can keep supporting all of those Australians who have so much money, right at the moment, tied up in an account somewhere for a holiday that they're yet to have.

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