Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Stoker for her question, especially as a senator from the great state of Queensland with its very strong interest in our tourism industry and with the number of tourism businesses across Queensland.

Our unprecedented scale of economic support for Australian businesses during the COVID recession, through programs such as JobKeeper and small business payments of up to $100,000, has sustained hundreds of thousands of jobs and tourism businesses across Australia. As part of our plan to ensure and secure the future of our tourism industry, the government has outlined an extensive range of supports to keep the industry going through these incredibly tough times. Importantly, last night's budget outlined a cash flow boost for companies with a turnover of up to $5 billion by allowing them temporarily, up to June 2022, to offset tax losses against previous profits and tax paid in or after 2018-19 through a temporary loss carry-back. This is an exceptionally important decision for many Australian tourism and travel businesses. It will help them in further cash flow support and is a crucial addition to other targeted measures that our government has undertaken.

On World Tourism Day, we announced a $51 million regional tourism recovery initiative to support some of Australia's most internationally reliant tourism regions, including in Senator Stoker's home state of Queensland. We have also announced a $50 million Business Events Grants program to get events, conferences, trade shows and exhibitions up and running again across the country. Our $100 million investment, at a minimum, in specific tourism infrastructure across our tourism regions will help regions to get through the tough times and to build back better. And our $231 million record funding for Tourism Australia will help to motivate the domestic tourism market and, crucially, position us well when we can safely welcome back international visitors.