Page 2752 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 29 June 2010
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We do not have a coherent training strategy. He said, “We tabled that in education and training.” But I want to know how he fits that into his tourism portfolio. I am not saying I was lucky enough to have a document in another portfolio. We do not have a blockbuster strategy. Again, the minister said: “Not my problem, not my bother. That’s the purview of the federal government.” Well, the federal government is not doing a great deal on tourism in general for the ACT and it is up to Mr Barr to have an opinion, to have a policy and to actually be doing something. He should write to some of these attractions overseas.
There are galleries closed—art galleries, museums, libraries—for refurbishment every day. But what we do not have is a minister who is interested in this, and what we do not have is a minister who is willing to do something. For instance, members might not be aware that the Da Vinci Museum from Florence has some working examples of the machines that Leonardo da Vinci invented. The exhibition has been to Newcastle, and it is now at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, but I am not aware that it is coming to Canberra. What has the minister done about it? Nothing. If we got a schedule of upgrades being proposed by galleries from around the world, for instance, the European Masters exhibition from the Stadel Museum Frankfurt is now in the National Gallery of Victoria. How about a program of successive exhibitions at the NGA, with its new galleries, replicating the Masterpieces scenario? We all loved that and we all were willing to take credit for it, but where is the next one? Just sitting on your laurels is not acceptable.
Other matters in tourism include funding for the Tourism Industry Council. They are the lowest—or the least funded—of any government in the country. Significant funds in other jurisdictions—hundreds of thousands of dollars—are put to helping coordinate the tourism effort. We are all willing to take the credit for tourism successes, but where is the assistance?
Tourism from China was basically written off by Mr Barr in 2007. The latest forecast from the Tourism Forecasting Committee, out last week, clearly showed that China is the growth area. It clearly showed that more Chinese are coming to Australia and we will continue to expect them to come from China. The contribution to growth in international visitor consumption from 2009 to 2019 is expected to be 21 per cent from China. From the tourism forecasting, in terms of international visitor consumption, China is forecast to be the dominant source of growth over the next 10 years to 2019.
What did we do? We walked away from it. Minister Barr walked away from China, and that is a shame. We have no plans there to capitalise on it. It is a disappointing approach to his tourism responsibility and it is a disappointing approach to the development of strategy for tourism in the ACT.
We have seen the flimsies that we have had done on tourism as a strategy and on Floriade. What we need is concrete plans to underpin these. What we need is an accommodation strategy that meets the needs of the city, complements the existing accommodation and delivers jobs for the people of the ACT. What we need is an attractions strategy for the next 10 or 20 years. I would like to see a bushfire museum
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