Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

That is a very important question from Senator Sinodinos. The tourism industry in Australia currently employs over a million Australians, but, even more importantly, it is a critical developer of regional Australia, because 45c in every tourism dollar is spent in regional Australia. The Chinese tourism market alone is worth some $5 billion to Australia and this is the market that effectively kept Australian tourism strong, particularly throughout the global financial crisis. What the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement will do is enable continued jobs and growth in Australian tourism. There will be greater investment into much needed tourism infrastructure and it will also put, for the first time, Australian travel agencies in the unique position to independently establish local operations in China. So it is no wonder that the Australian Tourism Export Council has said:

Our industry is very concerned about the shortsighted focus of the union's campaign ...

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