Page 149 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 12 February 2020
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Concessional loans for directly and indirectly affected small businesses, primary producers and non-profit organisations are available. This assistance provides loans of up to $500,000 at a concessional interest rate to meet carry-on requirements and/or repair or replace damaged property not covered by insurance. These loans are, of course, subject to eligibility criteria. They can be used to cover direct damage and loss of income from the bushfires.
We will continue to assess the impact of the bushfires and recovery needs within the community; we will continue to engage with the commonwealth; and we will request further assistance as appropriate. This assistance is also in recognition that Canberrans have played a major role in helping the wider New South Wales region during this terrible summer. Our respite centres in Dickson and Erindale are good examples of that work.
As I mentioned, in partnership with Tourism Australia, VisitCanberra launched the “holiday here” campaign to encourage Canberrans to take a staycation or to play tourist for the day, checking out an exhibition or two in our city. We already have $3.4 million in planned campaigns underway. This rolls out over the autumn period, which is a busy time for tourism in Canberra. This will be delivered through destination, event and international marketing, and we are looking at opportunities to partner with Tourism Australia to amplify this. As I have mentioned, as part of the budget review we are providing an additional $16.4 million to support our venues and events and to bring more visitors into our region.
Over the next few weeks we are hosting the National Multicultural Festival and the Enlighten festival. We are the host city for this year’s Australian Tourism Awards in early March. There is the Canberra Balloon Spectacular showcase. These will all demonstrate that the city is open. Our new winter festival, which kicks off this year, focused on innovation, creativity and culture, will play a key role in our recovery as well as challenging long-held perceptions about Canberra and bringing more visitors to our city at a time of year that is often quiet.
I need to stress that, beyond the short-term activities, it is important to maintain our long-term strategic direction. That includes continuing our efforts to secure more low cost airlines to fly to Canberra and more international flights—the team from VisitCanberra have been holding meetings with airlines this week—and to support new direct domestic flights.
This has been a challenging summer and it has impacted on our city’s export sectors. We are resilient, though, Madam Speaker, and there is every reason to be optimistic about the recovery phase ahead. At the end of last year, Canberra achieved its all-time record levels of both domestic and international tourism. We smashed our tourism 2020 targets ahead of schedule. There is a lot to be optimistic about in our city’s tourism industry.
The announcements I have just made, together with the commonwealth’s agreement to extend their disaster recovery assistance to the ACT, mean that there are a number of programs in place now to assist in the short term. There is a strong focus on the
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