Tourism funding

After 18 months of ignoring Liberal and industry calls for urgent action on tourism marketing, the cobbled-together, last-minute announcement of additional tourism funding by the State Government demonstrates just how tired and desperate Labor has become.

What has the State Government been doing for the past 11 years, let alone the past 18 months since the Tasmanian Liberals began calling for Labor to get behind our tourism industry and immediately invest in a marketing campaign to support jobs?

Since the onset of the global financial crisis, the Tasmanian Liberals have been calling on the Government to boost tourism as a way to cushion the economy from the worst impacts of the downturn.

In fact, we announced we would provide $5.5 million for this purpose in June this year.

But the Government has ignored this threat until now – on the eve of a State Election – refusing to “throw money around”, more concerned with short-term political problems than the long term interests of our State.

Labor’s failure to plan properly for the future will harm our State’s tourism industry, and the wider economy. There is a well known lag effect between investment in marketing and getting tourists on the ground that the State Government cannot dispute.
Jeremy Rockliff MP Shadow Minister for Tourism