DARWIN - 27 July 2021

Australia’s tourism industry is again being smashed by mass cancellations, all because of Scott Morrison’s broken promise on COVID-19 vaccines.

Scott Morrison said we’d be at the front of the queue for vaccines, but the reality is our vaccination rate puts us last in the developed world.

We are now 18 months into this pandemic and while other nations begin to re-open and welcome visitors, half of our country is in lock-down because Scott Morrison has failed to get enough Australians vaccinated.

Nationally, at least 80,000 jobs and around $80 billion in revenue have been lost from the tourism industry due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The impacts of these latest restrictions reach well beyond the areas locked down.

In the Northern Territory, tourism supported around 2350 businesses and contributed about $2.2 billion annually to the economy.

But those businesses are now reporting thousands of cancellations and occupancy rates as low as 30 per cent and, critically, this latest blow again comes during the peak tourism dry season.

National Cabinet is set to consider medical advice on the level of vaccination that will be required for Australia to begin to open up.

Those thresholds must be set by medical experts, not politicians.

Scott Morrison’s job is to make sure Australia reaches those thresholds as soon as possible.

While he dithers, the tourism industry will continue to suffer severe economic impacts unless JobKeeper is reinstated or something like it introduced.

Luke Gosling OAM MP

Member for Solomon