Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On this your first long night presiding over the Senate, can I add my congratulations to you, Mr President.

Last week I attended the National Tourism Alliance annual dinner here in Parliament House. It was a great opportunity to join the tourism and hospitality industries to celebrate the tourism industry and to look towards the future opportunities that the industry may have. The tourism industry is an $81billion industry for Australia, contributing more than four per cent of Australia’s GDP and directly or indirectly employing more than 880,000 Australians. The National Tourism Alliance is a united force for the Australian tourism industry. Members comprise key national industry associations and all state tourism industry councils, whose members represent over 90 per cent of tourism businesses in Australia.

The total economic value of inbound tourism to Australia in 2006 was $20.5 billion and the total economic value of domestic tourism in 2006 was a little over $60 billion, so a very significant industry for Australia. That brought to mind some of my experiences during this calendar year with the tourism industry. Just after Christmas, my wife and I and a couple of friends booked a P&O cruise out of Brisbane on the Pacific Star. P&O is a great company, well run, well managed in Australia by Mr Gavin Smith, who operates Carnival Australia businesses in this country. Unfortunately, P&O has had some poor publicity, but as politicians we know that the media will always concentrate on the dramas and the bad points. Very rarely does the media indicate the good points. P&O is a fabulous line and I can say from personal experience that the cruise we had, which I think is typical of most people’s experience of cruising on P&O, was just sensational. Being on the cruise ship itself was a magnificent experience, waited on hand and foot by very attentive staff, with magnificent meals. Safety was paramount. The number of security guards P&O had onboard the ship was overwhelming. It was a magnificent tourism and holiday experience and one which I recommend to all senators.

The P&O line gets some bad publicity, because the media expects that either the government or a company like P&O Cruises has to look after every individual and individuals no longer have any responsibility for looking after themselves. If something goes wrong through the decisions we make as individuals, it suddenly becomes P&O’s fault. Certainly, P&O operate a fantastic line with a magnificent holiday experience and, as I said, it is one I could recommend to any senator and indeed to any Australian.

On 21 July I had the honour of representing the Minister for Small Business and Tourism at Malanda in Far North Queensland at the official opening of some new units at the Rose Gums Wilderness Retreat. The Rose Gums Wilderness Retreat is a fabulous example of what we in Australia can do with our great tourism assets. This tourism retreat in Malanda, in the wet tropics rainforest, is just two hours from Port Douglas and the Daintree Rainforest, 80 minutes west of Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef. It is accessible all year by conventional vehicles and magnificently operated by Jon and Peta Nott who share their property, their home, with their guests. This particular retreat now has a conference centre. I recommend that, particularly to any public servants or any departments which may be looking for a retreat for a conference. It is a great venue right in the middle of the rainforest.

Interestingly, this retreat won a $100,000 award from the Australian Tourism Development Program, operated by the Australian government. They have been the winner for two years in a row of the Tropical North Queensland Tourism Award for accommodation. The new units, which I officially opened, are made of natural products and are slap-bang in the middle of the rainforest. If you stay there, which unfortunately I did not, you will have the opportunity of seeing 156 species of birds, on which John Nott is an expert. In these times of climate change, this particular wilderness retreat has a very interesting initiative of guests earning carbon credits. They have a program in place there and, for $25, you can buy your own tree and plant it in the rainforest. You receive a certificate and you become part of the solution to climate change. Over the 13 years they have had this property, Jon and Peta Nott have planted some 20,000 trees in the area, replacing what was a degraded dairy farm and it is a great example.

I want to talk briefly now about Australia’s national airline, recognised worldwide, and that is Qantas. Just after the parliamentary break in June I had occasion to visit Italy, in a private capacity, for a wedding. When you travel the world and see airports and infrastructure and undertake travel arrangements and then you come back home, you know why we are definitely living in the lucky country. Qantas were fabulous to me, as they are, I think, with most of their customers. I particularly want to mention the service I received from Nigel Page, Rosanna, Samantha Tyler in London and an employee in Rome, whose name I did not record, who was the only one who was interested when British Airways lost my suitcase. The Qantas employees and the Qantas people in Australia did a magnificent job in trying to track it down. They did not, because BA at the time had 12,000 bags lost around the world on one particular day—on any particular day—but Qantas were just fabulous. It makes you understand what a fantastic airline it is and why it has such a great reputation. People fly other airlines, and other airlines are good as well, but when you step on a Qantas aircraft anywhere around the world you feel as though you are home. At times we complain about Australia, but when you see our infrastructure and transport systems and compare them with those of anywhere else in the world you know why we really do live in the lucky country.

Finally, I want to relate a story which would restore one’s faith in human nature if it was ever missing. I was coming back from this visit to Rome and I had missed the plane, through nobody’s fault but my own. BA did get us back to London, and Qantas in London then got us back to Australia. I was very grateful for that; I had missed the plane because of my own inefficiency. But whilst in London and feeling rather tired I lost my wallet. I had no idea what had happened; I thought someone had pickpocketed it. We searched everywhere. Qantas staff helped me search. We reported it and cancelled all our credit cards. A few days after we got back to Australia I got a call from Diners Club saying, ‘Ring this number.’ I asked what the prefix was and they said it was for the Netherlands. I rang the number, and a hotel in the Netherlands called the Grand Hotel Huis Ter Duin was on the other end of the line. They said: ‘Yes, Mr Macdonald, a guest came in, went to unpack their baggage and found your wallet in their bag. They brought it down to us and asked us to find the owner.’ They had no idea how it had got there, and neither do I. But it was interesting that, from around the world, a fellow traveller had found my wallet, handed it in and got it back to me. That is a great example of what happens in international tourism. I am particularly grateful to Petra Molenaar at the Grand Hotel Huis Ter Duin at Noordwijk, the Netherlands, for doing that.