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

Madam Deputy President, I apologise: I will be more specific. Just last week, when the borders reopened, tourism jumped by 100 per cent in Queensland. The southerners wanted to come back to Queensland, which I must say I was quite surprised about. I talked to a cabbie here on my way down during the week and he was very angry with Queensland. He said that, given what the Premier had done in locking them out previously, he wasn't going to go back to Queensland for holidays. The whole reason why I'm talking about keeping borders open is so that we can get the tourists who would normally go overseas and have a holiday somewhere in the Caribbean to come to our beautiful city of Cairns, North Queensland, outback Queensland, the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast and, of course, my homeland of the Darling Downs.

We want to see the southerners come up to Queensland because we love tourism. When I grew up, tourism was the fastest-growing industry in Queensland. The late, great Premier Sir Jo Bjelke-Petersen turned Queensland into the tourist capital of the world. We had World Expo 88 and we even had George Harrison of the Beatles buy an island up there; everyone was flocking to the islands. Unfortunately, under Labor, tourism in the regions was destroyed.

They destroyed maternity wards in the regions. That would be another way to create jobs in the regions. You don't always have to go back to the industry you've been in. Maybe you could think about restoring some health services and reopening those 30 maternity wards that Labor have closed for the last 30 years. But can I just point out that the federal government has spent $28 billion in direct economic support for homes and businesses in Queensland—more than three times the $8 billion spent by the Premier of Queensland, Anna Palaszczuk.

You cannot continue to do lockdowns on short notice. As you can tell, I got my hair cut on the weekend. I was talking to my barber, and he lost 1,500 bucks on the weekend that we did that three-day lockdown—$1,500! Industries cannot survive if we don't have a clear and coordinated framework between the states. The states are the ones which perform health—that is in the Constitution. Or, should I say, that's not in the Constitution, and this is the thing that Labor keeps forgetting to mention. They like to say that we have to do quarantine, but, guess what? We don't have to do health, but we give $60 billion every year in block payments to state governments. So, if state governments want to give back the $60 billion, we'll take quarantine and health, because they go hand-in-hand. (Time expired)