Page 2721 - Week 08 - Thursday, 24 August 2006
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is that, Mr Speaker? I just reject it. She also said that we were slashing numbers and increasing the amount of damage. She put it all down to an increase in pig damage and that sort of thing. Where was there one ounce of proof, Mr Speaker? There was not one ounce of proof. I would have expected better of Kerrie Tucker, but she has gone, which is a shame, too.
Mr Stefaniak spoke for five minutes and did not mention a thing about TAMS issues, really. All I have put down in my notes is that he did not say much more than Mr Pratt. Mr Smyth spent well over half of his allotted time just whingeing about me. Good on you!
Mr Smyth: Maybe it was only a quarter.
MR HARGREAVES: All you did was whinge about me. If I have tickled you up that much, Mr Smyth, I wear it as a badge of honour, because to tickle you up does two things. It makes me feel good and it puts your voice up, and I am very happy with that. Mr Speaker, I must have got to him. He was actually portraying the dissenting report as gospel, as though it was the actual estimates committee report. It was not, Mr Speaker. The dissenting report was the report of two members of the committee. In fact, I will have a little bit more to say about their dissenting report when we get to the housing portfolio. While I am on my feet, I ask them to look at page 13, paragraph 3.10, of their report. We will talk about that when we get to the housing portfolio.
MR BARR (Molonglo—Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation and Minister for Industrial Relations) (9.43): Mr Speaker, I wish to speak very briefly on those areas within territory and municipal services that fall within my responsibility as Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation. I would like to highlight a couple of issues. Firstly, I was very pleased to see in the budget money for restoring 40 hectares of sportsgrounds, for the provision of a neighbourhood oval in Harrison and for another initiative that I am sure all members will join me in welcoming, that is, the one about hosting the Pacific School Games in 2008, a nice confluence across my portfolio areas of education, sport and tourism. The benefits that will flow from hosting that event in 2008 will be considerable and it is a great thing that Canberra will be able to host it and the government is able to support such an event.
Turning to the tourism side of my portfolio, I am always interested in what members of the opposition have to say in relation to tourism matters. Given the criticism that there has been of the budget, particularly in relation to tourism, I thought that it would be worth looking more broadly at some of the research that has occurred in recent times. The Australian government, through Tourism Australia, recently completed an assessment of the Australian domestic tourism market. What did they find regarding the last 20 years? They found that domestic tourism activity was relatively flat, that 2005 was a particularly bad year across Australia, with visitor nights falling by 7.1 per cent and total trips by nearly six per cent, and that Australians overall are now travelling less.
It is interesting to note that the only jurisdiction in Australia to buck that national trend of a seven per cent reduction was the ACT, which saw a six per cent increase in 2005. Looking across the board, in the last 20 years tourism’s share of household consumption has been in decline. In 2005, tourism contributed 14.3 per cent of total household consumption, down from 16.3 per cent only seven years earlier. Interestingly, at the same
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