Smaller states don’t want our tourist dollars, but will take our GST

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has refused to respond to mudslinging on her state’s handling of the pandemic.

Former prime minister Paul Keating once mused that, if you are living in Australia, and “you’re not living in Sydney, you’re camping out”.

Now, that might seem an easy thing to say for a bloke who calls one of city’s most affluent neighbourhoods home ... but 5.23m of his fellow Sydneysiders, from its blue-collar belt to its harbour-hugging enclaves, clearly agree.

If smaller towns and territories were able to match the Harbour City’s boundless riches — in both natural beauty and business opportunity — they would not be smaller towns and territories.

That is how population growth works.

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The only real contest has been where Sydneysiders — and their fellow New South Welshmen — spend their hard-earned while “camping out” on holidays.

For decades, multiple millions of dollars have been poured into high-end tourism campaigns designed to lure the people of NSW interstate for a break from the big smoke — whether it be to Queensland’s sundrenched beaches, the NT’s sunbaked outback or SA’s wine-soaked hillsides.

Now, despite a severe economic downturn caused by the coronavirus crisis, these same states believe it is too risky to take our money.

Well, our tourism dollars, at least; GST is another matter entirely.

Instead, they complain NSW is sermonsing about the need to re-open the nation’s borders and rebuild its economy together.

They point to the worst COVID-19 outbreaks in Australia — those involving the Ruby Princess cruise ship and Newmarch aged care home — and say it is simply too dangerous to let us in.

It is true, we have been hit by hard times, have learned some hard lessons and will need rock-hard support from our neighbours to rebuild.

There is no disputing that the task ahead is daunting and the fear of further outbreaks ever-present.

But the COVID-19 public health restrictions were never enacted to eradicate the virus, they were only ever designed to ensure our state health systems across the country were not overrun.

We have achieved that but, somewhere along the line, politicians shifted the goal posts and began putting election races ahead of economic recovery.

Make no mistake, our businesses and communities are hurting. A devastating drought, a hellish bushfire season and now the coronavirus crisis have pushed them to the brink.

But here, in NSW, we have never demurred from spending time in our backyard supporting our neighbours and friends.

Last year, of the 27.2 million overnight visitors in regional NSW, almost three quarters of them came from within the state.

So that is what we will continue to do.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian has refused to react to unseemly mudslinging from interstate about NSW’s handling of the pandemic or her own predilection for holidaying in Queensland.

Like the residents she represents, she remains steadfastly focussed on the health of the state and its economy.

In NSW, we reckon that is worth celebrating.

And where better to celebrate it this winter, than in one of our own pubs, surrounded by 49 of our closest mates.

The kind who never turn their back on you in a time of need. The rest can keep on camping out.