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

Prime Minister Gillard fiddles and the tourism industry burns. There are 500,000 people directly employed in this sector and one million people employed in the tourism and hospitality sector, which makes $24 billion in export earnings. Where was the Prime Minister of this country when she was required? It seems clear to me that the one person who could have resolved this issue is the Minister for Foreign Affairs, because, if the foreign minister had got involved two weeks ago, you can rest assured that the Prime Minister would have got involved, because it is only when the foreign minister acts that the Prime Minister acts. So I wish he had been there a little earlier, and those tens of thousands people stranded in airports wish he had been there a little earlier, so that the Prime Minister would have acted. Her nemesis would have driven her to do something. But no. Isn't it fascinating? The Prime Minister cannot pick up the phone to speak to Alan Joyce, but she can pick up the phone to ring someone in Bali. She cannot pick up the phone to speak to the President of Nauru, but she can pick up the phone to speak to someone in Bali, only on the back of the foreign minister having made a call beforehand. This is a Prime Minister who has completely and utterly lost control of this government and indeed has completely and utterly lost control of this country.

It is fascinating to read some of the newspaper articles today. I will quote from the Daily Telegraph. This was posted at 12.18 pm:

The high-profile Qantas executive Olivia Wirth has confirmed she called Julia Gillard's chief of staff Ben Hubbard hours before Alan Joyce grounded Qantas and said the CEO was available to speak to the Prime Minister.

Indeed, the same newspaper article says that he waited until five minutes before the decision for the Prime Minister to ring. And that same newspaper article says:

Mr Joyce had intended to give Ms Gillard advance warning of his intention to announce that he was grounding the airline's entire fleet and leaving almost 70,000 passengers a day stranded.

The article also says:

Mr Joyce would have abandoned his decision to ground the airline had PM Julia Gillard returned his call and promised to directly intervene.

But no: the Prime Minister was too busy with CHOGM to worry about the affairs of this nation and too busy trying to convince people from elsewhere about the bona fides of a carbon tax that we now find that the Canadians do not support either. She was too busy doing everything else other than what she should have been doing as Prime Minister.

The result of this has been quite catastrophic. Anyone who knows anything about the tourism sector knows that they are in diabolic strife. The last thing that the tourism sector needed was a Prime Minister failing to act in the interest of the nation and in the interest of the tourism sector. I will read some comments from people involved in the sector. Ten days before the grounding, this was in an article in the Australian:

Flight Centre managing director Graham Turner said the government should step in to force a solution to the dispute.

'If they can't do that, it makes you wonder why we elected a government,' Mr Turner said. 'This is exactly the sort of situation where they should be actively searching or forcing a solution.'

John Lee from the Transport and Tourism Forum said:

… we are already seeing a drop-off in forward bookings which will now only get worse … The 500,000 people directly employed in Australia's $94 billion tourism industry do not deserve to have their livelihoods threatened by this, which could be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Des Crowe, the national CEO of the AHA, said:

The grounding of the Qantas fleet will have an immediate and devastating impact on the tourism industry during what is traditionally one of the busiest times of the year for many hotels.

This Prime Minister should have acted; this Prime Minister failed to act again.

Question agreed to.