Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Tourism is one of the industries that have been most affected by the current pandemic due to the restrictions on travel. For Queensland, this is particularly dire as it relies on tourism more than any other state, with tourism bringing $27 billion into the economy and employing one in nine people. The Great Barrier Reef is just one of the many tourist locations in Queensland that are suffering at this time.

This bill, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Amendment (Coronavirus Economic Response Package) Bill 2020, makes amendments to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975 that will waive the requirement for reef permit holders to remit the environmental management charge for the quarter from 1 January 2020 to 31 March 2020. This will help alleviate some of the financial pressure on tourism in the Great Barrier Reef by lifting this tax and allowing businesses to keep more of the money they earn during a time when their income is considerably less than normal. This bill comes off the back of the government's Coronavirus Economic Response Package Omnibus Bill 2020, which waived the charge from 1 April to 31 December of this year. This amendment, therefore, is only an extension of what the government has already done and comes from calls from current permit holders who have been unable to pay the charge from this year's first quarter. The bill will remove this additional financial pressure. Although permit holders are no longer remitting their charge, the government will ensure that the money spent on the management of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park will remain the same.

This bill will provide a very welcome relief to the reef and to small businesses, but it is ultimately a short-term solution. While international travel is still a long way off, what the state really needs is interstate travellers to get the tourism industry back on its feet. This remains an impossibility as long as Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk stubbornly refuses to open the state's borders. The July school holidays are a busy time for Queensland tourism, as visitors from the south come up to enjoy the warmer weather. The amount of business that will be lost if borders stay closed over these important holidays could spell the end for many small businesses, including those in the Great Barrier Reef.

The government's aim with restrictions has always been to curb the spread of infections and flatten the curve. This has been achieved, with the cases having significantly decreased since their peak in late March, and the number of active cases in Queensland is in the single digits. Yet Annastacia Palaszczuk seems to want a full eradication of the virus, saying that she will not open the border unless there are no local cases in New South Wales and Victoria, which could be as late as September, or maybe even never. This is a ridiculous and unsustainable goal and nothing but meaningless grandstanding on the part of the Premier. The goal was never to eradicate the virus, and the experts say this isn't possible in Australia anyway. While New South Wales and Victoria do have more cases than Queensland, their numbers also continue to fall, and the curve is most assuredly flattened. The Premier's medical argument is becoming less feasible by the day as Queensland continues to report no new cases.

The real reason the Premier is keeping the borders closed is that she has an election coming up in October and she thinks she can win more political points by pretending that she cares more about people's lives when they are no longer in any real danger. As a matter of fact, the lives that are in danger now are those of our small business people, who are suffering poverty and homelessness and watching their businesses slowly decline. There are measures in place to deal with any new infections that come, including widespread testing and contact tracing. It's more than safe to open the borders. Do we stop driving because there are accidents on the roads or stop going out in the sun because people get skin cancer? No. This entire pandemic has been about weighing the cost of infections against the damage done to the economy.

In this situation, the cost to the Queensland economy far outweighs the health risk of opening the border. It is vital to the Queensland economy to get the tourism industry back up and running as soon as possible. But, while the borders remain closed, estimates say Queensland is missing $2 billion per month. The destruction that the Premier's decision will cause to people's livelihoods will be far worse than anything caused by the virus. The coronavirus is serious, but life cannot stop indefinitely because we are afraid or because Annastacia Palaszczuk wants to look like she's doing more than anyone else. This popularity contest she's trying to play with Queenslanders is in her own interests rather than the interests of the people in her state and is causing real harm to real people. Her stubbornness in keeping borders closed is slowly destroying people's lives and an entire industry. This is what happens when leaders look out for their own interests, in order to hang onto power, over the interests of the people they are supposed to serve.

Support this bill to provide relief for an industry that is doing its best to get by in these unprecedented times and to support the small local businesses represented by those in the Great Barrier Reef—that is the backbone of this country. But, more importantly, support the opening of the Queensland border to really help tourism and all the jobs and livelihoods it represents. I commend the bill to the Senate.