Page 3214 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 18 November 1992
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Mr Lamont: You lost that one, Tony.
MR DE DOMENICO: No, I have not lost that one. Let me quote again from some more people in the same industry that Ms Follett and Mrs Grassby stand up from time to time and talk so glowingly about. This is from the Canberra Visitors Attractions Association. Once again, this is not an apparatchik-type organisation that goes around playing politics. The association says:
All our members who have small businesses with less than 15 employees are very concerned of the effect this will have on their productivity and continuing profitability.
We are saying on the one hand that it is fantastic that tourism is such an important industry in the ACT, and it is; but, if you are really going to put your money where your mouth is, do not at the same time bring in other legislation that is going to target that particular industry. There are no bones about that, because the Deputy Chief Minister, when he introduced that legislation, stood up and said, "We are specifically targeting the tourism industry and the retail industry". These are the same two industries about which we now stand up and say what a wonderful contribution they are making. So, you cannot have it both ways.
We are saying that the tourism industry does a marvellous job for this city and it will continue to do so, notwithstanding which government is in power, although it will do a heck of a lot better under a Liberal administration. Notwithstanding which government is in power, the tourism industry will always do well for this town. It is an industry for the future and it will continue to provide a lot of money to the ACT. What I am saying, Mrs Grassby, through you, Madam Speaker, is: Congratulations for the good work, but you cannot do good work on the one hand and then take it away with the other. Well, maybe you can, but you cannot then be taken seriously. It is no good working to improve tourism when your policies do the opposite.
It is not just that one occupational health and safety area. We cannot just pick out tourism and say, "Hey, listen, here is this thing called tourism". Tourism is a big business in itself. It is worth $400m a year, as Mrs Grassby correctly said, and it employs some 7,000 people, a lot of them young people. Tourism also comprises hundreds and hundreds of small businesses. Whether people like it or whether they do not, they are not immune from the things that happen to all other businesses. Labour policies, industrial relations policies, tax policies, regulation and interference all make it difficult for tourism operators to operate successfully in this Territory and in this country. If you want any elucidation of that point, every tourism organisation that wrote to all of us here spoke a lot - - -
Mr Lamont: There is not a lot of tourism in New Zealand, Tony.
MR DE DOMENICO: There is, Mr Lamont.
Mr Lamont: No, there is not, mate. They are all coming over here.
MR DE DOMENICO: If you want me to quote you some tourism figures from New Zealand, I will be quite happy to do it at another time; but that has nothing to do with the MPI at this time. It is all about the big picture. That is what I am trying to say, Madam Speaker. You cannot talk about just individual projects you have singled out to be nurtured and encouraged. It is great that you are doing
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