Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The last time the Prime Minister visited Cairns was to campaign for the LNP in the Queensland state election. When he was there, he told Far North Queenslanders that he would have their back, but, now that thousands of workers in Far North Queensland are about to lose their job, the Prime Minister is nowhere to be seen. This is a Prime Minister who turns up when he needs you but turns his back when you need him. We know that in Cairns 3,600 businesses are currently relying on JobKeeper. That is more than any other postcode in Queensland, and it's more than most of Australia's big capital cities. It's an extraordinary number and it indicates the level of support required to support businesses and jobs heavily reliant on tourism—and heavily reliant on international tourism, because it has been over 12 months now since this government closed international borders. We understand that there was a health imperative to do that, but it has been a long slog for businesses and workers in Far North Queensland.

Two weeks ago, the former chief health officer, Brendan Murphy, told reporters that it is unlikely that international tourism will start until next year, so it could be 24 months before international tourists set foot in Cairns again. These businesses, let me be clear, are making decisions right now about whether to make workers redundant. They are not waiting until 30 March, and this government cannot wait until 30 March to tell these workers what the plan is to support their jobs.

It certainly hasn't helped that they have been getting mixed messages from government MPs about what the support might look like. Only a couple of weeks ago local MP Warren Entsch, the member for Leichhardt, told people in Cairns that extending JobKeeper was a no brainer. He said that the support would be there until it was needed. But now we know that what he was doing was telling people in Cairns one thing when the Treasurer and the Prime Minister had another idea. They won't be there to support Far North Queenslanders when they need help, they will not be extending JobKeeper and they will not be supporting the thousands of jobs that are currently on the chopping block in Cairns. These mixed messages have certainly not helped, and the uncertainty about future support is not helping either.

At the moment, after speaking to tourism operators, there's some vague notion about getting some sort of package together, but there is nothing on the table from this government. If you're a tourism worker in Far North Queensland right now, you do not know what this government's plan for your job is. Today the minister representing the tourism minister cited many types of funds and grants and all of the things that were announced in the budget to try to help regional tourism, but I bet, if we scratched the surface of these programs that have been announced, none of that money has been spent, because most of that money was marketing money. Marketing money to who? It's marketing money to tourists that cannot come to Australia, that cannot come to Cairns. That money has not been spent, and the grants have only just opened.

So this is a government that makes big promises and fails to deliver, and it's done it again when it comes to tourism workers. They've got their list of grants and programs that they like to read off in question time, but what they do not have is a plan for these jobs and for these businesses. Workers in Far North Queensland know that this government is leaving them behind, and they absolutely will not forget. They also know that this government has had seven years to diversify the economy in Cairns and has failed to do that as well. They know that this is a government that turned its back on these workers when they needed them, and they will never forget.