Albanese: Govt cared about tourism in 1929, why not in 2014?

Albanese: Govt cared about tourism in 1929, why not in 2014?
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Shadow Minister for Tourism MP Anthony Albanese has laid down the gauntlet to the Prime Minister to re-evaluate the importance of tourism to Australia’s economic welfare, comparing former conservative PM Stanley Bruce’s efforts to prioritise tourism in 1929 to today’s lack of support from government.

“If a conservative Prime Minister in 1929 can see the value of prioritising tourism as part of a national economic strategy, why can’t a conservative Prime Minister in 2014?” Albanese said during an address at the TTF Leadership Summit in Canberra earlier this week.

“There are few industries with the geographic reach or enormous potential of tourism.”

“Support for the tourism industry is an investment, not a cost,” he said.

Albanese said recent developments show “it is becoming increasingly clear that there is no one advocating effectively for tourism around the Cabinet table”.

Albanese stressed that it was the first government in more than 40 years that Australia has not had a Minister for Tourism.

Albanese said more attention should be given to cities as a main entry point for visitors. 

“I’d be less thrilled if they stepped off into congested streets, polluted air, poor infrastructure and a sick or dying Great Barrier Reef.”

“Yet that could well be the direction we go in without improved attention from the Commonwealth Government to urban policy.”

Albanese has since launched an Urban Policy Forum to engage with experts on the best way to manage cities for both leisure and business travellers.

“It is these kind of ideas that Labor brings to the table.”

“We don’t shy away from the big challenges of today – we embrace them,” he said.

Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au

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