TRANSCRIPT

Bob Baldwin MP

Federal Member for Paterson

Shadow Minister for Regional Development

Shadow Minister for Tourism

December 1, 2011

Interview with Graeme Gilbert – 2SM

Subject: Cuts to Tourism Budget

Bob Baldwin:          Good evening Graeme.

Graeme Gilbert:    The Government has money for self-promotion but hasn’t got money for important things.

Bob Baldwin:          Well this is a selfish Government that will spend over $100 million of taxpayer’s money promoting a promise they broke to the people, yet tourism (which when you add hospitality) it employs over a million Australians is having its’ budget cut.  Now if you went to “Marketing for dummies 101” it says when times are tough you spend what you can marketing to attract customers to your shore. Now these cuts – around $4 million to the bottom line budget of Tourism Australia and the Department – will impact on its ability to market in areas such as China. 

China is the greatest growth market we have and more importantly, because they have such a rapidly emerging middle class with a high disposable income, they are primed for the picking for our tourism market and this Government is penalizing tourism.

Now Graeme, I know you said a little about this before.  When Paul Howes opened his mouth and said if one steel job goes, he would pull his support from the Government, they gave $300 million to the steel industry.  That’s over double what the tourism industry get for their annual budget yet the tourism industry employs over 1 million people when you add hospitality in.  Whereas the steel industry employs just 95,000.

Graeme Gilbert:     Yes they’ve ceased being a party representing the working families and I know you were in Parliament the other day when the Prime Minister was all huffy and puffy about how dare the Liberal politicians talk about helping working families. Well she was really talking about herself in reality because she’s turned her back on as you say, the tourism industry, the hospitality industry, hundreds of thousands of people and the flow through from that we’re talking about almost countless families and nearly everyone in Australia in some indirect way is directly associated with hospitality.

Bob Baldwin:           Well one in ten people working in Australia are employed in tourism and hospitality. It produces over $92 billion to the bottom line of our economy.  These aren’t high profit businesses. They’re employers but they’re not high profit. About 80% of them are small operators -- mum and dad and maybe the kids. 

People doing some things such as adventure tourism or running the local amusement parlor who are not the major employers such as Qantas , and the major hotel chains and the amusement parks up the Gold Coast. But most of the operators particularly in regional areas are small mum and dad businesses and they are going to suffer the impact of this.

Graeme Gilbert:    Yeah. I was going to say, people serving cups of coffee. People you know with Devonshire Teas, scones with jam and cream.  It’s all part of the hospitality and tourism trade.

Bob Baldwin:           Well it makes the economy work.  We’ve been inundated with calls since the Treasurer released the MYEFO results yesterday when people worked out not only were they going to get hit with the reduction in the funding (or the efficiency dividend they call it), it was through tourism Australia but also visa charges are going to increase as well.  Now this is a Government that rakes in around $630 million from the Passenger Movement Charge, not the visas but the Passenger Movement Charge which is four times the budget of Tourism Australia.  So off the tourists coming into Australia they’re making $630 million, they’re giving the authority, Tourism Australia, a total of $157.9 million to sell Australia to the rest of the world.

Now we’ve got some great product here and we’ve got great people full of passion doing what they do, otherwise they wouldn’t be in it to be honest with you because the returns, the seasonal influences, the natural disasters all have an impact but these people love what they do and they’re out there trying to make a quid and this Government has failed them yet again.

Graeme Gilbert:    Yeah it’s a funny old attitude. I know I keep coming back to it but I just don’t understand an Australian Government being so anti Australian worker?

Bob Baldwin:           Well they go through the mantra chant of supporting working families and supporting businesses and supporting the workers but the reality is that they’ve done very little to nothing. In fact they’ve penalized people. I mean you quite rightly said earlier on in your opening comments Graeme about the carbon tax.  The carbon tax is going to impact the tourism industry very heavily. Now don’t take my word for it.  There is a group called the Tourism Transport Forum which was headed up by Chris Brown, the former Tourism Minister John Brown’s son, it’s now headed up by Bruce Baird with John Lee, the former Labor head of Premier and Cabinet in NSW so there is no direct political bias all one way.

They put a report out on the carbon tax that said it would cost 6,400 jobs most of those in regional and rural, places like the Hunter, places like Ballina down the south coast, you know where your listeners are.  It would also impact to the tune of between $600-800 million on the tourism industry and the only beneficiary of a carbon tax on tourism in Australia is the outbound market. In other words people will be more tempted to go to Fiji or Bali because they’ll be no carbon tax over there.

Graeme Gilbert:    That’s right. We’ll go and see places like Cairns, up next to your electorate in Port Stephens, places like Central Australia all those things are going to are affectively going to shut down, certainly going to come to a grinding slow down, whereas Fiji, Vanuatu, Tahiti, all of these places are just going to boom!

Bob Baldwin:           Well, this Government will have a lot to answer for and I think people will express that at the polls. But what I find disappointing when times are getting tough, this Government fails the test of actually supporting the businesses, particularly the small businesses who often put their house on the line, everything they’ve got on the line, most of them end up living off their asset, not their profit but they deserve a fair go and they need a government that’s going to back them up.

Now we’ve got Tourism Australia a Government Department which promotes Australia to the rest of the world and the Minister has made much of that.  In fact the Minister in his Industry Statement in October (it’s called the “State of the Industry”) said that on the economic modeling for every dollar tourism generates directly, a further 91 cents is generated elsewhere in the economy.  So it’s good money spent, it brings money on shore and these are the things that help with our terms of trade, it helps build our tourism market here in Australia and as we have people that come here, have a good experience, they go back to their home country, they tell people how great Australia is, our natural wonders that we have here, the people with a smile on their face and it helps build even further tourism.

As you know, word of mouth marketing, people having a good personal experience will go back and sell the benefits of coming to Australia…

Graeme Gilbert:    And let me tell you Shadow. I know that you are aware of it already but it’s a damn good country to come and visit isn’t it? We’ve got a lot of attractions.

Bob Baldwin:           I’m an Australian by choice and I think this is the best country in the world and that’s why I do what I can to improve the lot of my fellow Australians. I don’t always get it right, but you know I put my best foot forward and I’m determined to make life just a little bit better for those prepared to have a go and that’s the Australian way of life. We jump in, we have a go, sometimes we succeed, sometimes we fall over, we dust ourselves off and we get up and we have another go again.

Graeme Gilbert:     Get up and do it again. You are so right cobber! Thanks for your time tonight.

Bob Baldwin:           Well Graeme, if I don’t get to talk to you again before Christmas, I wish you and your listeners all the best for Christmas and one simple message. If people are thinking of holidaying, holiday at home in Australia. Do your bit to support our tourism industry here. You can always put off an overseas trip for another year.

Graeme Gilbert:    That’s right and to you and your family Bob, all the best and to your staff too. Whenever we deal with them they’re always first class.

Bob Baldwin:           Well I’ve got excellent staff Graeme. That’s what makes my job so easy. I have excellent staff who are always attentive and very caring and switched on and I appreciate them.

Graeme Gilbert:     Thank you Bob. Bob Baldwin, the Shadow Minister for Regional Development and Tourism

(END)