Page 2715 - Week 08 - Thursday, 24 August 2006
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because the government’s calculations were all wrong. It would be really interesting if the minister actually told us when he stands up to respond whether it is true that tens of thousands of tonnes of fill are being taken off the Gungahlin Drive site and, if so, what that will add to the cost of the project. The debacle that Mr Corbell started just seems to continue. I remind people that the on time and on budget promise was made on, I think, 1 July 2005 and it is now well after 1 July 2006.
The department is an odd department now because it has a departmental head that is responsible to at least three ministers. Mr Stefaniak has already spoken about sport and recreation. There is the municipal side of it and Mr Barr, of course, has tourism. When the reforms were put in place the Chief Minister said that they would make life simpler, less complex, but we now know that it is more complex and more convoluted than ever. It was interesting to have the change of seat and have Mr Barr appear as the minister for tourism. The sad thing about that is that tourism actually makes money for the government but they do not understand that. They fundamentally do not understand that. Mr Barr said, “Yes, the experts tell me somewhere between $4 and $11 is the return for every dollar you invest.” Spending a dollar and getting $4 back would be pretty good for a government that is broke, $123 million in deficit.
One of the ways you might make some money is by working on broadening your tax base and getting more visitors here, actually taking off visitors some of the money that they like to spend when they are on holidays and create jobs here, making sure that we as a community get the benefit from tourism that we should be entitled to. The industry is concerned about what is happening. Up to 1,200 jobs are now at risk and something like $20 million worth of revenue may go begging.
The fact is that all of the other jurisdictions are putting more money into tourism, either maintaining or putting more money into events. A number of them have either just completed or are building new convention centres because they value them and they understand what they bring to their community in terms of investment, opportunity, the GST they get out of them, the payroll tax they get out of them, the jobs they get out of them and the turnover in the community with the multiplier effect, but not this government.
I have heard it said that tourism funding is a luxury. It is not. Tourism funding is about selling the message that your city is a place that is worthy of a visit. The nation’s capital must be worth a visit, certainly by all Australians and by as many overseas tourists as we can get to come to this great city. But the government does not care. We are going to cut the funding and we are going to cut off our nose to spite our face, because we are going to lose jobs and we are going to lose revenue.
At a time when this government is so strapped for cash following its ineptitude and the ministerial mismanagement of the budget, you would have thought that it would be looking for any opportunity to get some extra revenue. But not this government. I think that the whole of this budget is encapsulated in just one small area, the tourism budget: “We know it is important to the city, we know it gives a return, we know it creates jobs and we know it creates investment, but we are going to cut it anyway.” That just defies logic.
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