Coronavirus: Qld MP Kate Jones accuses federal government of ‘duping’ bushfire victims

Qld MP accuses the federal government of trying to stretch $76m in bushfire recovery funds to the impacts of coronavirus.

QLD tourism minister Kate Jones. Picture: Getty Images

Queensland Tourism Minister Kate Jones has accused the federal government of duping disaster victims by stretching $76m of bushfire recovery funding for the tourism industry to cover the impacts of coronavirus.

On January 19, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and federal Tourism Minister Simon Birmingham announced a $76m tourism recovery package to help tourism businesses and fire-affected communities across the country.

At today’s tourism ministers’ meeting, the agenda stated that the $76m fund would also help businesses impacted by coronavirus.

Ms Jones accused the federal government of being “mean and tricky” by “rebadging” funding originally announced for bushfire victims.

“If this is what it seems, it’s a slap in the face to bushfire victims,” Ms Jones told The Australian.

“It’s disappointing to think that 35 days after he imposed the China travel band, the Prime Minister still hasn’t committed any funding to support our struggling tourism and international education industries”.

“I’m calling on Scott Morrison to bring out the cheque book.”

Ms Jones said the tourism industry in Queensland, particularly in Cairns and the Gold Coast, was losing thousands of bookings each week, and needed an urgent funding boost to help the state’s tourism and international education sectors through the difficult period.

But Mr Birmingham hit back, denying the $76m had been “rebadged”.

“The Federal Government has always been clear that the $76 million package was to support the entire Australian tourism industry to recover from the reputational damage covered globally by the bushfires,” Mr Birmingham said.

“Queensland both acknowledged and welcomed the fact that they would benefit from this funding at the time is was announced and any claim that is has been rebadged is just petty politics and outright untrue.”

“There are no silver bullets to ease the pain being felt by many tourism businesses, with global travel bookings down and Australia one of many nations feeling the impacts of coronavirus.”

He said the government was constantly adjusting and refining the message, timing and targets for the $76m fund and the existing $154m tourism marketing budget.

“We are bringing forward elements of our $20 million domestic campaign to encourage Australians to ‘Holiday Here This Year’ and recalibrating tens of millions of dollars to ensure optimal timing and messaging to lift bookings from international markets when we can,” Mr Birmingham said.

He said Mr Morrison had made clear that “more help” was on the way to deal with the coronavirus crisis.

The Queensland government has so far announced a $27.25m package of measures to help small businesses impacted by coronavirus. Small and medium enterprises will also be able to defer their payroll tax payments for six months.

Last week, Queensland Treasurer Jackie Trad estimated coronavirus would slash between $900m and $1.7bn from the Queensland economy, depending on how long it took to contain the global spread of the disease. If it took longer than six months, the cost would exceed $1.7bn, Ms Trad said.