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Tourism dying as premiers defy PM

The tourism industry is on track to lose $54.6bn from border bans if restrictions are not eased.

Scott Morrison wants national cabinet to adopt a COVID-19 hotspot definition on Friday. Picture: Gary Ramage
Scott Morrison wants national cabinet to adopt a COVID-19 hotspot definition on Friday. Picture: Gary Ramage

State and territory leaders are preparing to defy Scott Morrison’s bid to have national cabinet agree to a single hotspot definition at Friday’s meeting amid new warnings that border closures will cost the tourism industry up to $33bn this financial year.

Tourism Research Australia data shows the industry is on track to lose a combined $54.6bn — at least 40 per cent of the tourism market — from ongoing inter­national and domestic border bans if government-imposed restrictions are not eased.

The modelling, released ahead of Friday’s national cabinet showdown where the Prime Minister will try to break the impasse on borders, came as the West Aus­tralian and Queensland governments pushed back over criticism of their states’ lockdowns.

Mr Morrison wants national cabinet to adopt a COVID-19 hotspot definition on Friday so that states introduce more targeted travel restrictions on Australians, rather than blanket bans that have caused chaos for workers and ­people trying to access interstate medical care. Coalition MPs have blasted the Queensland government for using its ban on NSW and ACT residents as a “blatant ­attempt” to win votes ahead of the state election on October 31.

AFL executives and their families have also been allowed into the sunshine state as Queensland prepares to host the grand final, while sick Australians in NSW have been denied entry.

Premier Daniel Andrews, left, and Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton, who says it would be ‘great’ to have a national definition of a hotspot but each state will continue using their own ‘risk threshold’. Picture: David Crosling
Premier Daniel Andrews, left, and Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton, who says it would be ‘great’ to have a national definition of a hotspot but each state will continue using their own ‘risk threshold’. Picture: David Crosling

After Australia officially entered into a recession on Wednesday, Josh Frydenberg warned that there was too much confusion and cruelty created by ad hoc border closures; he said more compassion and common sense was needed.

Victoria’s Chief Health Officer, Brett Sutton, agreed it would be “great” to have a national definition but said he believed each state would continue using their own “risk threshold” to decide who should be allowed in.

“If you are a jurisdiction with no active cases, or only cases in hotel quarantine and no community transmission, then your issue is about how you define hotspots in other jurisdictions,” Dr Sutton said. “It would be great to get to that (a national definition) — I think it would potentially make for an easier movement of people across the country but it is a pretty vexed issue.

“Every jurisdiction is going to come to its own threshold.”

Deputy Chief Medical Officer Nick Coatsworth said a national definition was “very challenging” but “may well be something that we need to do”.

“It’s a very complicated definition, the one of hotspots, and it will continue to be applied in different ways by the chief health officers necessarily because the circumstances of each particular outbreak differ so much from state to state and region to ­region,” he said.

With tourism, hospitality and accommodation among the sectors hardest hit by COVID-19, TRA calculated what Australians would spend on interstate travel in 2020-21 if there were no border restrictions in place. Under the best-case scenario, interstate travel unimpeded by border closures would add $33bn to the tourism industry, which would be worth $83.8bn this financial year — almost $55bn less than in 2019.

If border restrictions are not removed, the tourism sector stands to lose almost $10bn by the end of December.

Tourism Minister Simon Birmingham said it was imperative that states and territories adopted a “sensible approach to border restrictions” to reignite the domestic visitor market and unshackle businesses forced on to the government’s JobKeeper wage subsidy scheme”.

WA Treasurer Ben Wyatt seized on Wednesday’s national accounts figures to declare his state’s “hard border is no drag on the national economy”.

WA’s economy shrunk by 6 per cent in the June quarter but the two best performing states or territories — the ACT and Northern Territory — have either never closed their borders or adopted restrictions targeting Australians in COVID-19 hotspots.

“Those states with strong borders faring the best in the June quarter economic figures,” Mr Wyatt tweeted.

“What is clear — control of the virus supports economic ­recovery.”

Queensland’s Treasurer Cameron Dick, whose state recorded a 5.9 per cent reduction in state final demand, responded with “100 per cent” agreement.

Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce also urged national cabinet to define hotspots so border restrictions would be based on science, saying businesses needed certainty to operate.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING: RACHEL BAXENDALE, CHARLIE PEEL, ROBYN IRONSIDE

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/tourism-dying-as-premiers-defy-pm/news-story/33e056c751fba4aa1cf84539c02af933