Cairns mayor Bob Manning lifts lid on recent dispute with Qld tourism Minister over visitor levy

The Cairns mayor and Queensland’s tourism Minister in a recent meeting had wildly different opinions over how to progress a “bed tax”, according to Cr Bob Manning.

The Cairns mayor has lifted the lid on a recent dispute with the state’s Tourism Minister over the embattled visitor levy wherein Bob Manning said he was told by the minister to back down.

Bob Manning’s vision for a user-pays tourism levy was overwhelmingly backed by the Local Government Association of Queensland in October and also mirrors a recommendation made to the Department of Tourism by its commissioned report Towards 2032.

Tourism Minister Stirling Hinchcliffe rejected both, saying it was at odds with the state government’s pledge to introduce no new taxes.

But Cr Manning has kept up his fight, vowing not to let the issue die as long as he is mayor.

His proposed model would levy an additional 2.5 per cent from tourists on top of their typical accommodation bill.

The total revenue, an expected $18m, would fund the Far North’s regional tourism organisation, TTNQ; a change, according to Cr Manning, that would incentivise more effective tourism marketing campaigns.

The model would ensure local businesses would not be out of pocket, but such a levy is not currently within the scope of a local government’s powers.

Bob Manning has lifted the lid on a recent dispute with Minister Tourism Stirling Hinchcliffe over the visitor levy adopted at October’s LGAQ. Picture: File photo

Cr Manning said the levy would save the Cairns ratepayer $4m.

In a meeting between himself and the Minister, Cr Manning said the Minister urged him to cease his pursuit and recommended the mayor levy Cairns’ businesses through a differential rating system instead to raise the funds.

Cr Manning disagreed.

“I took a phone call from the tourism minster who said ‘Bob, we want you to drop it’. He said ‘forget about the levy, because we don’t think you need it’. I’m not going to drop it,” Cr Manning said.

“I said ‘but Minister, we’re going to get back $4m for our ratepayers … we want you to help us by making some minor changes to the (Local Government Act)’. But they’re trying to close us down on this.

The visitor levy motion was adopted at LGAQ’s October conference in Cairns with 85 per cent of the vote. Picture: Nuno Avendano

“The Minister said to me ‘Bob, you can go out now and levy those businesses. You’ve already got that power’. What they’re saying is to levy businesses through differential rating. That’s no longer user pays. That’s wrong.”

Although Cairns Regional Council would have the legal authority to implement a differential rating system, Cr Manning said such a move simply wasn’t right.

“Local government cares about its people like no other level of government. It gets to people when government promotes a case that’s not right,” he said.

“The state government had a report done – Towards 2032. That was done internally. That recommended the levy be taken up, 100 per cent taken up.

“The state government hasn’t taken up its own recommendation.”

Minister Tourism Stirling Hinchcliffe rejected the visitor levy adopted by the LGAQ, saying it would contradict the state government’s pledge to not introduce new taxes. Picture: Annette Dew

A spokesman for the Tourism Minister said there was not unanimous agreement on a visitor levy among Queensland tourism industry leaders.

“It’s not unusual for the Minister to meet with a mayor or councillors of a Queensland tourism region,” the spokesman said.

“Queensland local governments have the ability through their general rating systems to introduce their own levies to fund tourism marketing activity, events and infrastructure.

“Several South East Queensland councils have already adopted tourism and events levies.”

Rumours have swirled in Cairns Regional Council that the state government rejected the LGAQ’s model with an ulterior ambition to implement their own levy that would tax tourists in a similar way, but instead transfer revenue to its own RTO: Tourism and Events Queensland.

When asked if he had adopted this hypothesis, the mayor responded: “That’s a theory, we don’t know … I don’t trust people.”

The spokesman for the Minister dismissed the rumour.

“The Palaszczuk government does not support a statewide visitor levy,” he said.

“To be clear, Tourism and Events Queensland’s $125m … is locked in and fully funded with no requirement for a levy.”

LGAQ chief executive officer Alison Smith said her organisation continued to advocate and campaign for the state government to conduct comprehensive and meaningful consultation with local governments on the implementation of a visitor levy.

“That advocacy includes working to have the state government establish a Visitor Levy Advisory Group through which councils who wish to pursue the levy can work with the State to determine a pathway forward and change the Local Government Act to provide local governments with the ability to implement a visitor levy on an ‘opt-in’ model, with resulting funds to go directly back into the local tourism sector, driving more visitors, more spending and more jobs,” Ms Smith said.

Originally published as Cairns mayor Bob Manning lifts lid on recent dispute with Qld tourism Minister over visitor levy