Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, I apologise to you for moving while you were on your feet, but you will understand that we needed to get across to this side of the chamber after the division. On behalf of myself and my colleagues, my apologies.

Mr Deputy President, I am pleased to see you in the chair now. I will read the following, and then I will ask the question of who might have said it:

The Australian tourism industry is built on thousands of small and medium sized business who operate on tiny profit margins and they are already feeling the impacts of the high dollar and a dwindling domestic tourism market.

The impact of a price on carbon is yet another hit to these businesses – delivering a ‘triple whammy’ – and forcing them to question their ongoing viability.

If these businesses go down, they take with them the jobs and livelihoods of tens of thousands of individuals and communities, particularly in regional areas, who rely on the tourism economy.

Now, who said that? Was it the shadow minister for tourism? Was it the Leader of the Opposition? Was it the shadow Treasurer? Was it the shadow industry minister? No, it was not. It was the Australian Tourism Export Council, a representative group of tourism in this country. I repeat:

If these businesses go down, they take with them the jobs and livelihoods of tens of thousands of individuals and communities, particularly in regional areas, who rely on the tourism economy.

So we have a 'triple whammy' in relation to the tourism industry. If you look further at what has been said by other peak bodies, you will see again just how dramatic this is. I refer, of course, to the Tourism and Transport Forum, which has just done a survey to which 78 per cent of respondents believed that a carbon tax will have a medium to high impact on their business.

It was very interesting that during question time, in an answer to a question from a senator—although I cannot remember who it was—Senator Carr talked about the impact of the high dollar on the manufacturing sector. There was no word, of course, about the tourism industry. Indeed, there is no word at all from the government in relation to the effect of the carbon tax on the tourism sector. The tourism sector receives no compensation, yet it is a multibillion-dollar industry for this country. It is very much the domain of mum-and-dad tourism operators, spread throughout the nation, who are carrying the tourism industry.

Blind Freddy knows the enormous pressure the tourism industry is under, and Blind Freddy knows that the last thing that industry needs for its survival is a toxic carbon tax. The ridiculous formulation of this tax means that to fly from Melbourne to Cairns will cost an Australian family an extra $50. But if they go from Melbourne to Bali, there will be no carbon tax at all. So this is an anti-tourism tax—an anti-Australian-tourism tax. It is an anti-tourism-job tax. And for what reason?

It is clear that this government is simply not listening to the Australian people and not listening to people in the tourism sector. But it is very, very interesting that this was not always so. In 2007, the Minister for Tourism, Martin Ferguson, said that a $40 per tonne carbon tax would have us kill the aviation industry. Well, it is not going to be too long before it is at $40. We know the modelling has been done on $20 when it was actually $23. We know it will be at $50 within a decade. So the government itself, through its own tourism minister, has admitted that a carbon tax will kill the aviation industry. If you kill the aviation industry you kill the tourism industry; you kill it stone dead.

The Australian Tourism Export Council's press release of 25 July—the same one I referred to in relation to the 'triple whammy'—reported that they had BDO do an inquiry to look at this carbon tax. BDO's Head of Sustainability, Dylan Byrne, said:

There is an urban myth that the tourism industry will only feel a slight impact from the introduction of a carbon price, but the reality is some of the proposals will have major direct and indirect impacts on the costs incurred by tourism operators.

The same firm, in an analysis done by BDO, found that Australian tourism businesses face electricity increases of 30 per cent or more, with a significant impact on operators reliant on diesel or aviation fuel who face a reduction in their fuel tax credit of 18 per cent.

Everyone in this chamber knows that most tourism operators operate on high electricity usage—it is just a given. BDO has found those costs will go up by 30 per cent or more. Everyone in this chamber knows that the tourism market is absolutely price sensitive. I do not think there is another industry in this country that is as price sensitive as the tourism industry. All we are going to do with a carbon tax on the tourism industry is ensure that we dramatically increase the number of outgoing tourists and dramatically reduce the influx of inbound tourists. It will be outbound up and inbound down. The greatest impact of that will be on the internal tourism sector.

The figures of the impacts on and the nature and scope of the contribution of tourism to this country are quite remarkable. The inbound tourism industry produces $23 billion of export income for Australia, but it is the domestic tourism industry that creates the most economic activity, with domestic tourism consumption valued at $71 billion per annum. The Tourism and Transport Forum has warned Labor that 'outbound tourism is expected to grow significantly due to the carbon tax'.

The steel industry has received compensation from this government. Given the fact that this government knows about the impact of a toxic carbon tax on the tourism industry, why aren't they receiving compensation as well? Every single person in this chamber living outside the metropolitan areas of this country knows full well that the impact of this toxic carbon tax will fall most on regional and rural Australia. There is no doubt about it—that is where the most dramatic impacts will be. Looking around this chamber today, I see a lot of people who live outside metropolitan cities in this country and I have got a question for them: at what stage are you going to stand up for your own people and acknowledge that the impact of this tax will fall heaviest on those people that you represent?

It is all very well having a debate in caucus about Australia's migration policies, as you should, but where are the voices of the regional and rural ALP senators and members in the two chambers? Where are their voices? Why have they rolled over on this toxic carbon tax, which is going to cost their own people hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of jobs? Why do they not acknowledge the impact? Why don't they stand up for these people and why would they let a great tourism sector—a great industry for this country—die a very painful death?