Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Great Barrier Reef is the subject of this bill and my comments—which I began I think, Mr Deputy Speaker, before you entered the room—relate to the importance of tourism to the Great Barrier Reef. One of the single biggest markets over the last 10 to 20 years for Great Barrier Reef tourism has been the Japanese market. The Prime Minister went to Japan and completely scooted off in terms of supporting the tourism industry whilst he was in Japan. I found that every time I went to Japan as Managing Director of Tourism Australia the embassy up there and Ambassador Murray McLean were fantastic in helping bring together and support the tourism industry and in hosting various events and functions at our fantastic embassy there in Tokyo to support the tourism industry. So, frankly, this government have no credit to make criticisms of previous campaigns. They need to stump up their own cash on this. They need to stump up now with their own campaign. The campaign that was run under the incredible funding of the Howard government delivered a $4.2 billion increase in tourism revenue for Australia.

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