Tens of thousands of Queensland tourism jobs remain at risk because the Morrison Government refuses to support them beyond the end of March.
Support for Great Barrier Reef operators announced over the weekend is a small step and important for environmental monitoring, but is too little, too late for tourism.
Reef tourism businesses have been suffering for a year and, even with this support, will continue to struggle well beyond the scheduled end of JobKeeper on 28 March.
A broad range of tourism businesses, including reef operators, have made it very clear that jobs have been and will continue to be lost if targeted support is not delivered by the time JobKeeper ends.
The Morrison Government knows that more than 300,000 jobs could be lost but continues to delay any decision around future support for the tourism sector.
Policy should be based on people, not the PR priorities of the Prime Minister.
Workers in Queensland and across Australia who rely on tourism for their livelihoods shouldn’t be anxious about whether they’ll still have jobs in April.
If Scott Morrison and Dan Tehan really cared, they’d give certainty to the sector now instead of extending that anxiety for the sake of Scott Morrison’s media schedule.