Exclusive interview with The Hon Fran Bailey, Australian Federal Minister for Tourism and Small Business

The Mole: It was great to see you on the podium with South Australian Labour Premier Mike Rann, South Australian Labour Minister Jane Lomax-Smith launching such an amazing event in Australian tourism. 

It appears that party politics have been put aside with the benefit of generating tourism business the goal.  Are the States and the Federal Government now working together to achieve that gaol?

Minister Bailey: We all work very well and closely together and we have held one Tourism Ministerial Council where all the State Ministers come together with the Commonwealth to discuss issues of common interest, the future of tourism in this great country and more importantly how we can all work together.

I am delighted to say that we are pretty well all on the same page and working together with common aims and objectives.

There are sadly though two Governments who are not stepping up to the plate and demonstrating their commitment and that is not because the tourism organisations are not working with us, but it is more to do with those State and Territory Governments.

Of course I am speaking about the Australian Capital Territory and New South Wales, which have not shown the commitment to tourism that other States and Territories have shown.

In ACT as I am sure you know, they are actually closing the Territory’s tourism organisation and in New South Wales they have recently slashed their tourism budgets.

These Governments are spending less than other States and do not have the commitment at a Government level compared to other States.

We are working closely with virtually all other States and Territories in a number of scenarios including for example, the aftermath of the cyclone in Queensland and it is terrific that we are all working together.

New South Wales sadly is unbelievably arrogant at a Government level, because they think that they do not have to do anything because they have Sydney and its icons and that does the job for them.

I have been everywhere in NSW and all the regional tourism organisations in New South Wales are giving the same message, they are simply not getting the dollars and support from the NSW Government to market their regions effectively.

When I was in Dubbo recently the people at Western Plains Zoo told me that they are down 25% on the same month last year and I did not hear anything that told me that the NSW Government was doing anything to help.

The Tourism Minster in New South Wales was the only State Minister that publicly criticised the “Where the Bloody Hell Are You” campaign when it was launched  

The Mole: Yes, that was question in the Press Conference this morning and Scott Morrison said NSW had subsequently apologised.

Minster Bailey: Yes, they did, but in ACT John Stanhope has actually abolished the Tourism Board just when they are turning things around

But it is not Tourism Australia’s responsibility to market domestic tourism, but our responsibility is in developing the research and providing that to the States.  That is what our Field Officers do which it taking our research out the regions and ensuring that State and regional tourism operators have first class research on which to base their business decisions.

The States and Territories overall are committed to tourism and will see the benefits, but we don’t believe NSW is.

Unless NSW begins to show a serious commitment to tourism, international visitors will be arriving in the international terminal in Sydney, going across to domestic and travelling and dispersing to other parts of Australia, which are investing well in tourism marketing and will reap the rewards.

We are enjoying a 25% increase in exports of services and tourism is responsible for 50% of that, the biggest growth area is tourism.   The operators and Governments that work with us will see the results. 

The Mole: When the “Where the Bloody Hell Are You Campaign” was launched, the reaction from the UK was pretty strong – did you think that was going to happen?

Minister Bailey: Everyone in Britain was on side and they love the campaign.

It was only the Advertising Standards people that objected, but we got great coverage.

The BACC was really shocked that a Minister of the Crown got on a plane with Lara Bingle and flew over 20hrs to speak with them and sort them out! 

But, it did show them how serious the issues were and how serious we were about resolving them.

I was not going to let a $180m campaign suffer as a result.  I told them that this is not a 10min wonder and we will stick with this campaign for three years and we have been proven right with the tremendous response we are now enjoying.

The Mole: Thank you Minister for taking the time out of your busy schedule and we wish you a highly successful ATE 2006.

Interview by John Alwyn-Jones at ATE 2006