Anthony Albanese uses Currumbin by-election launch to call for emergency federal funding

Labor leader Anthony Albanese says Queensland regions like the Gold and Sunshine coasts were reeling and called for emergency federal funding to save the tourism industry from coronavirus.

LABOR leader Anthony Albanese has used a visit to the Gold Coast to call for emergency federal funding to help the coronavirus-crippled tourism industry.

Mr Albanese was at Coolangatta on Friday to help campaign for ALP candidate Kaylee Campradt in this month’s Currumbin by-election.

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He said tourism hotspots like the Gold and Sunshine coasts had been hit hard by the ‘massive impact’ of coronavirus which has robbed them of major overseas visitor market China.

Mr Albanese said he had met with tourism leaders on Thursday night and they were ‘very concerned’.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese said tourism hotspots like the Gold and Sunshine coasts had been hit hard by the ‘massive impact’ of coronavirus.

“We know essentially that the number of people coming from overseas has crashed,” he said.

“In some cases, they can’t come, even if they want to come here to Queensland. Businesses here are really under pressure.”

While the Morrison Government had allocated $76 million in emergency tourism funding following the bushfires, Mr Albanese said there were ‘no extra dollars on the table’ to deal with the coronavirus crisis.

“There’s just a reallocation away from the bushfire-affected areas to areas like Cairns,” he said.

“That frankly is not good enough. What we need at the moment is an injection of support from the Commonwealth Government into communities like this one (the Gold Coast) in order to maintain jobs and make sure the economy keeps going forward.”

Mr Albanese said he would be holidaying at home in the coming months, attending Bluesfest at Byron Bay.

“This is a great place to come and I would encourage Australians to come here,” he said.

The Labor leader also called for calm as panicked shoppers cleared supermarket shelves of products including toilet paper.

“If I have a message, it’s keep calm and wash your hands,” he said.

“I’d say to people out there, there’s no need to go out and buy dunny paper. There’s no need to go out there and buy pasta - it’ll all be available. Just keep calm, wash your hands, go through sensible measures.

“I have no doubt that we’ll get through this - we have a very good medical system.”