Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak to the nearly seven million Australians who live outside our capital cities and the nearly 500,000 Australians who work in our tourism industry. If there is one thing these two groups have in common, it is that they have both been remarkably let down by this Labor government. Much is made of a new government’s first budget—it is the government’s ultimate opportunity to demonstrate what they truly believe in. What did we see in Labor’s first budget in 2008? We saw $1 billion stripped out of the regions and $1 billion of new tourism taxes introduced. It is clear to see why Labor finds it so easy to make poor policy decisions.

As the shadow minister for regional development, I live in regional Australia and have done so for more than three decades. As the shadow minister for tourism, I have had skin in the game as a tourism operator in the water sports industry. Both the Labor ministers I shadow—the Minister for Resources and Energy and Minister for Tourism and the Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government—have no such real connection with their portfolios. In fact, they share the same qualification coming into this place both having been presidents of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and living in metropolitan Melbourne. The Minister for Resources and Energy and Minister for Tourism discharges his duties in that order and is widely known as the minister for the mining tax. But he got his training wheels by taxing the tourism industry.

The Rudd-Gillard government’s reckless spending on things like pink batts and giveaways and the cost blow-outs on school halls have created record levels of debt and deficit. Labor’s addiction to reckless spending has been matched by an addiction to new taxes to fund their record debt and deficit. In its first term alone, the Rudd-Gillard government has imposed more than $1 billion of new tourism taxes on the Australian tourism industry, including increasing the passenger movement charge by 24 per cent, raising tourist visa fees by more than 33 per cent and abolishing the private provider system for the Tourist Refund Scheme for GST. These new tourism taxes were introduced by the Rudd-Gillard government at a time when the Tourism Forecasting Committee was expecting inbound visitor arrivals to fall by 4.1 per cent.

As someone who has been a tourism operator, with my own money on the table, I know the effect these taxes have on the bottom line. The minister does not. Perhaps the minister could do with a textbook: ‘Business Studies 101’. When you have been in business you know that when times get tough it is not the time to make your product more expensive than your competitors, but that is exactly what this Labor government did. Unfortunately, for the 500,000 Australians who get their livelihood from the tourism industry, that is not all they did. Faced with the challenges of the global financial crisis, an appreciating Australian currency and increased international competition this Labor government also cut the marketing budget. The Rudd-Gillard government’s own budget papers show that, while total federal government spending has skyrocketed from $272 billion to $352 billion under it, funding for Tourism Australia dropped by $13.5 million in real terms. These funding cuts under Labor mean that in real terms funding for Tourism Australia has not been lower since the introduction of the landmark tourism white paper in 2003.

Another textbook the minister should read is ‘Marketing Studies 101’. When markets are falling you advertise your product more to increase the awareness of your potential clients; you do not cut the budget. When the times got tough Labor made the product more expensive and cut the marketing budget. That is no way to run a tourism business and it is no way to execute tourism policy. Under the Rudd-Gillard government, the tourism industry is wearing the burden of Labor’s debt and deficit without having got any of the benefits of their record spending. Seven million Australians live outside our capital cities, yet Labor’s Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government is not one of them. He lives in metropolitan Melbourne, and it shows. Yesterday the minister said in a speech at the National Press Club:

This new paradigm effectively turns Australian Government upside down—we want solutions coming up from local communities not being imposed from above by Canberra.

What we do know is that Labor are sending the problems back down from Canberra to local communities. There is no bigger unwanted imposition on regional Australia that Labor’s great big new carbon tax on everything. The Prime Minister ruled out a carbon tax before the election but now, thanks to the Labor-Greens alliance, Labor will break their election commitment. This means the costs will rise for those seven million Australians living outside our capital cities and there will be a negative effect on those half a million jobs in tourism.

As the Leader of the Opposition pointed out in question time today, since December 2007 electricity prices are up by 34 per cent, water prices are up by 29 per cent, gas prices are up by 26 per cent and health costs are up by 18 per cent, and it will only get worse with the carbon tax and the mining tax.