Page 147 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 12 February 2020
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(a) currently has $3.4 million in active tourism campaigns focussed on bringing more visitors to Canberra;
(b) is working collaboratively with Tourism Australia to maximise available financial assistance on destination marketing campaigns;
(c) through Visit Canberra, launched the new “Holiday Here Canberra” campaign in January 2020, encouraging Canberrans, their families and their friends to support local businesses;
(d) through Visit Canberra is working with the Canberra Convention Bureau to attract new business events to the Territory for this calendar year;
(e) will allocate an additional $16.4 million over the next four years to support the tourism, events and hospitality sectors through Canberra’s major venues and events; and
(f) will continue work with industry and partners, including local businesses, national institutions, airlines and accommodation providers, to identify new opportunities to boost both domestic and international tourism to Canberra.”.
The amendments outline the ACT government’s response to date, correct many of the falsehoods perpetrated by the previous speaker in his remarks and highlight the government’s work and important announcements that I will be able to make today.
In the first instance, it is worth acknowledging the significant impacts on businesses in the ACT in the wake of the severe weather events. There have been a number of them over the course of this summer. As I think members are aware—I alluded to it in this place yesterday, and there was extensive coverage of it at the time, if Mr Wall had bothered to pay any attention—the ACT government held an initial round table with the tourism and hospitality industry on 17 January to hear directly from the sectors about the impacts. At that stage—this was before the Orroral Valley fire and also before the hailstorm—this was around the smoke impacts. That helped inform the initial government response.
We then moved quickly and directly to assist the hospitality sector by announcing an immediate 50 per cent reduction in the cost of outdoor dining permits for existing permit holders and a waiver of all fees for the first 12 months for new permit holders. We have been working directly with impacted businesses to case manage their individual circumstances and to assist them in gaining access to both ACT and commonwealth support. That has been ongoing for several weeks now.
On 29 January I wrote to the Prime Minister seeking confirmation of access to the commonwealth disaster recovery funding arrangements. That was on 29 January. Last night that approval finally came through. This morning Minister Littleproud and I were able to announce that the commonwealth had confirmed that disaster recovery assistance had been activated.
I wrote in late January, initially in relation to smoke and the hailstorm. I subsequently followed up with a further request to the Prime Minister in relation to the Orroral Valley fire. On the date I wrote the first letter, that had not escalated to the extent that it eventually did. There have been a number of trigger points over this summer to seek
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