Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be participating in the discussion on this report because I very strongly support the recommendations. I have been discussing these matters for quite some time with my good friend the member for Lingiari, who unfortunately cannot be here today to participate in this. I have had the great pleasure of travelling to Christmas Island on several occasions over the last few decades; I think I first went there in 1985 and have been back, I guess, once a decade since then.

It is a truly fantastic place. I would highly recommend Australians to take the opportunity to go to Christmas Island and see its truly extraordinary natural wonders, it being a great volcanic island in the middle of a vastly beautiful ocean. It is very isolated and very expensive to get to, which is why, if it is to have a future, it really needs to be able to lift its tourism product. I am very pleased to have noted over the period of my four visits to Christmas Island that, each time I have gone back, particularly last year to celebrate the extension of the mine lease, the tourism product has individuated. There are now small private accommodation facilities emerging. There are smaller hotels, cafes and shops that are servicing the tourism industry.

But it is very expensive to get to this remote island, so you really need to develop the economies of scale in tourism in order to make this a viable and sustainable operation and to provide that feedstock of work on the island. We know that, due to the stopping of the asylum seeker vessels arriving on the island, there has been a reduction, obviously, in the number of immigration staff coming to the island and therefore a very considerable reduction in flight schedules. That again puts pressure on the tourism industry, so we really have to be very focused about what it is that we can do to rebuild that industry.

I am not a great supporter of casinos. But I do think that, given all of the challenges of the island because of its remoteness, it is only by allowing and fast-tracking the reopening of the casino at the hotel that we can build that tourism package and product and that we can once again generate low-cost flights from Indonesia. In the 1980s and 1990s you were able to fly to Christmas Island really much cheaper via Indonesia than via Australia. There were many, many Indonesians coming over to Christmas Island to enjoy the pleasures of the hotel and casino, in a way that perhaps they were not able to do, because of various religious restrictions, within their own country. It really did give life, vitality and some diversity to the economy on the island. The casino eventually closed down in 1998 for financial reasons, but the hotel has now been in a phase of rebuilding. It is ready and the new owners are in a position to reopen the casino, but this does require federal government action in that regard.

The committee has recommended that the government commit to reopening this casino and to putting in place the necessary policy, legislative and regulatory frameworks to allow that to be done without delay. I am not in any way being critical of the government in this regard, but it is important to understand that there has been quite a cataclysmic effect on employment on the island and on the use of the tourism facilities on the island from the absence or the removal of asylum seeker vessels and all of the supporting accommodation needs that they generated. So this has had a very dramatic impact on the island, and so it is really important that we act with some urgency to enable this casino to be reopened and to give substantial employment to local people on the island.

I am very pleased that last year, as I said—after I think these negotiations had taken place under both governments—the phosphate mine had its lease extended until 2034. That was great, and that also has provided employment. But I note that I believe strongly, as I understand the member for Lingiari does, that really we can have a cohabitation of the mine and the national park. That is not in any way to suggest that there would ever be any proposal for mining in the national park. We certainly would reject that, but there is other unallocated crown land that could be accessed without impacting on the national park envelope. I think that, in order to keep a minimum level of employment activity going on the island, we need to seriously consider how we provide for the extension of the phosphate mine life, and that would require, it would seem, some expansion of the mining envelope. I have seen some of the regeneration that has been done on the island of areas where mining has finished, and it seems to me to have been done well and to a high standard.

These very sudden changes that have occurred in the last year with the winding down of the detention centre really are impacting on the flight schedules and on mail deliveries, really putting a lot of pressure on the people on that island and putting enormous pressure on the viability of the tourism industry. So I think it is really critical that we get moving on this quickly.

I notice one of the other recommendations, which I think is a very sound one, is to ensure that we allow the educational facilities on the island to provide educational services to full-fee-paying students. That seems to me to be an absolutely fantastic opportunity for Christmas Island to be able to provide educational opportunities for foreign fee-paying students who may wish to come to the island and have the benefit of an Australian education. I note that Christmas Island is only about an hour's flight from Indonesia.

Again, I am very pleased to be able to support the interim report, and I urge the government to get on with the job of facilitating the reopening of the casino. You will certainly have bipartisan support.

Debate adjourned.