Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2026-2027

Mr LITTLEPROUD (Maranoa) (17:32): I rise for my contribution around consideration in detail, particularly since the minister's here, and to reinforce what the member for Forrest asked, particularly around the callous cuts to Tourism Australia. Over $85 million has been ripped out of Tourism Australia since they first came to government and over the forwards. In a time when tourism in Australia hasn't got past 2019 levels—we're sitting at about 90 per cent of 2019 levels, and if you cast your mind back, we had this little thing called COVID where planes stopped and the world stopped—I would have thought that one of the first actions of a government that took over after COVID would be to ensure that Tourism Australia was properly funded so that airlines could continue to bring people here, motels could be full and tourist operators could get their fair share after going through a pretty tough time.

I think it's important that the government gives an explanation to Tourism Australia, who has passionately defended this industry and has grown this industry in the important way that it contributes to this economy. It is important that the government gives an explanation as to why they cut it, what impacts that will have on the particular industries and what parts of tourism it will actually impact.

I'm sure there would have been Treasury modelling on that. It's important that the government shows transparency to Tourism Australia out of sheer respect. I'd also like to bring to the minister's attention—as the previous speaker, the member for Sturt, alluded to—the shortages around fuel.

This mismanagement by the government in the initial stages of the fuel crisis in not understanding there were two markets—one in which regional markets are supplied by secondary tiered distributors, when we had towns running out—caused the government to spend $20 million on an advertising campaign that effectively trashed tourism in regional Australia. I'll give you a perfect example.

In my electorate, between Easter and October, we see somewhere between 50,000 and 60,000 visitors every year. People come out as part of the drive market and go to towns like Longreach, Winton, Roma and Charleville. But we have seen nobody this year.

In fact, I've been to caravan parks in Charleville where there is nobody there. I've been to motels in Charleville where they are sacking people today. This is because the government has put out a $20 million campaign telling us to take our roof racks off and to pump our tyres up.

This has created fuel anxiety across regional Australia. People in the cities are too scared to come out. And when you talk to these tourist operators, they will tell you that 70 per cent to 80 per cent of the cancellations are because tourists believe they will get stuck in regional Australia.

Tourists believe there isn't fuel there. I have five councils in western Queensland that could create, in less than a week, an app that could tell people travelling across western Queensland whether there was fuel at fuel stations. We have a government that spent $20 million on telling us to take roof racks off and to pump our tyres up, but cannot create an app that gives Australians confidence to get out, travel across regional Australia and make sure there is economic diversity in these regional communities.

The drive market is shot. And as we go into winter and into the ski season, you are going to see much of that sector also hurt because of the scare campaign that this government undertook. It's not going to take much to recalibrate some of that $20 million.

I wrote to the minister back in April—it would be great to get a response from him—asking him to get the government to create a national app. They have FuelWatch. All they have to do is add a little green bar next to it where they can actually show people, when they drive across regional Australia, where there is fuel at a fuel station.

That would help take away the anxiety. They can pivot their $20 million into scaring Australians into submission. They could actually go and shout to the world that they have actually solved the fuel crisis and there is fuel there.

They could create confidence across this country that there is fuel in regional Australia. If they recalibrated those ads immediately then we would get people out there. Our season isn't finished in regional and rural Australia.

It takes leadership to understand you have made a mistake. It takes leadership to fix it. But when you've got a minister who won't even respond to a letter that was sent with genuine intent, with genuine concern and real solutions for a little group of councils in western Queensland—I mean, the department would spill what it would cost to put an app together before smoko on a Monday.

Surely, they can put together something that would give confidence to the Australian community that maybe this fuel crisis is over and that tourism is important in this country. Unfortunately, we have a government that has ripped the guts out of it in their budgets and has ripped the heart out of it with a purely senile advertising campaign.