DARWIN - 27 July 2021

LUKE GOSLING MP, MEMBER FOR SOLOMON: Thanks for coming down to the beautiful Waterfront in Darwin. It's awesome to have our Shadow Tourism Minister, Senator Don Farrell, from South Australia here – a massive supporter of the Northern Territory. In fact, the last time that Don and I were here at the Waterfront, we were talking about how the Northern Territory needs to retain two seats in the House of Representatives, and we did achieve that. So, we just continue to want the Federal Government to do the right thing.

Obviously we're here today to talk about the massive impacts on our tourism sector, from the lockdowns down south and particularly now two big cities. It's not just the people of Sydney and Melbourne who are affected by the lockdowns. It's the businesses that depend on those tourists coming to visit that are struggling. We know that four out of five businesses here in the tourism industry are really facing big down-turns due to the restrictions on travel, where people from Sydney and Melbourne aren't coming up to visit Darwin. We know four out of five businesses are experiencing that down-turn. People from Sydney and Melbourne that would normally be coming up to Darwin, had bookings, have had to cancel. So, it's been about half of the bookings have been cancelled for tourism businesses. And that's having a massive effect.

Of course, it didn't have to be this way. If the Prime Minister Scott Morrison had done his two jobs, which was to bring in proper quarantine facilities – like Howard Springs that we've got here, as he was advised, around the country – then we wouldn't have had these hotel quarantine leaks that have led to the shutdowns. Also, if he had’ve got the vaccine roll-out going quicker, obviously, we would have been in a lot better place than we are right now. Those failures in not having proper quarantine, not having the vaccine rolled out, is really affecting businesses here in the Northern Territory, in particular tourism businesses. We've got a situation where four out of five territory tourism businesses are facing severe down-turns because of those cancellations, from people primarily from Melbourne and Sydney. So, that's unfortunate.

We've been calling for a return to JobKeeper to keep people in the tourism businesses in places like Darwin connected to their workplaces. As far back as the start of this year, when we still had JobKeeper, I was calling on the Prime Minister to continue JobKeeper and target it particularly for tourism and other industries that were going to be greatly affected by break-outs of the pandemic into our community. We've found that that has come true. The vaccine rollout wasn't quick enough, and the hotel leaks meant that we've had a break-out of the of the virus and that is really impacting on our tourism businesses. They should have continued to support tourism businesses that were affected by the pandemic. So, that's been unfortunate. We want the Federal Government to get the proper quarantine facilities and the vaccine rolled out much quicker.

Also, I just want to take the opportunity to acknowledge our NT Olympians. In the hockey we've had both Jeremy Heywood and Brooke Peris score goals in games Australians are winning in Japan at the Olympics. It was also a great to have the Australian swim team training here in Darwin, and we've seen some great results in the pool. So, I think it's underlining Darwin's great place and positioning to be a training camp, not only for Olympians and Aussie Rules football players, but for a whole range of sports. You can come up here to the Territory, you can train, and you can go on and win overseas, as we've seen in the Olympics. So, we just wish all the Olympians in the Australian team well, and we obviously look forward to more medals.

So, that's all I wanted to say for now and I just wanted to thank again Senator Don Farrell, our Shadow Minister for Tourism, for coming up to the Territory and once again helping our Territory businesses, particularly tourism ones.

SENATOR DON FARRELL: It's terrific to be here with my great friend, Luke Gosling, today. He's a wonderful representative of the Northern Territory, and the issues he's raised today are of national significance. I actually have a couple of titles. So, one, of course, is Tourism, which I'll talk about in a moment. The other one is Sport, and I just want to congratulate the terrific effort of the Australian athletes in the Olympics at the moment. At a time of lockdown in more than half the country, it's lifting the spirits of Australians. But the reason I'm here in particular is to talk about the issue of JobKeeper and the need to maintain JobKeeper for all of those businesses that are now affected by the lock-down. Right now, more than half the country is locked down. That'll change soon, but just for the moment the lockdowns are having a terrible impact on places like Darwin. We know that we only have a limited amount of time to get tourists up to the Northern Territory, the dry season. And of course, with the lockdown, a whole lot of people from South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales have had to cancel their travel arrangements.

Now, it's not just those states that are being impacted by COVID at the moment and the lockdowns. It's people in the Northern Territory. It's small businesses running tourism operations, it's workers, who work in those businesses. And what the government must now do as a matter of urgency is reinstate JobKeeper. If the government doesn't do that, then we're going to find that a whole lot of businesses who are hanging on by the skin of their teeth at the moment will fail. We don't want that to happen. That shouldn't happen. It shouldn't happen in Australia. And we want to ensure that those businesses continue to provide a service for those people who come from the south. I mean, you can't get a better place to come right at the moment. I'm sure that when the lockdowns end – and they will eventually end – people will be wanting to come to the Northern Territory, but there's got to be businesses up here still left to provide them with services. That's hotels, hospitality services, and of course, tourism services, adventure tourism. All of those things, we want to be here at the end of these lockdowns. If that is to happen, the government has to act now.

I read today that the Prime Minister has been mulling about the issues in the lodge. He shouldn't mull any longer, he should act. It's time for action, the government has to do something to ensure these businesses continue to operate. It worked last year. JobKeeper kept the link between workers and their companies. We need to do that again now. As Luke said, the government had two jobs to do during this pandemic. One was to ensure an effective vaccine roll-out. Well, it failed on that task. We didn't get enough vaccine. It hasn't been rolled out fast enough. I'm actually getting my second jab this afternoon at Casuarina. So, the government needs to do more to encourage people to get their vaccines. But secondly, unlike the Northern Territory, which has led the way with quarantines, the government hasn't acted. It's had 18 months to fix the quarantine issue in the rest of the country. It's failed to act. The government has to stop mulling while Australia burns and act now, reinstate JobKeeper, get the vaccinations done and ensure that we're properly quarantine.

I'm sure Luke will be happy to answer any questions and I'm certainly happy to do answer any. Thank you.

JOURNALIST: Is the return to JobKeeper the answer when it continues to plunge us further and further into debt?

SENATOR DON FARRELL: Well, I think we have two choices here. More debt, yes. But in the absence of more debt, we have more poverty in this country. Businesses closed. Workers are unemployed. That's not an Australia I want to see, and I don't think that's an Australia that most of the country wants to see. We know from last year that JobKeeper did keep people employed or engaged for a period of time. The situation isn't as serious now as it was last year. But if you're effected, if you're a worker just about to be retrenched, if you're a small business just about to close, you're in a quite desperate situation. You can't wait for the government to think about this. The government knows what it needs to do. The government knows that JobKeeper is an effective remedy to COVID. It's an effective remedy and the government has to act now. And if that means a little more debt, well so be it. But I don't want to see an impoverished Australian workforce, or businesses put out of business.

ENDS