Tourism ball in Gillard?s court after Abbott promises cash

A Coalition government would spend an extra AUD90 million to help attract visitors to Australia.

That?s the latest promise from Australia?s Opposition Leader Tony Abbott as he battles to gain ground against Labor leader Julia Gillard.

The Coalition, headed by Abbott, is campaigning against the ruling Labor party (under Gillard, Australia?s first female Prime Minister) in the run-up to a general election due in less than three weeks: on 21 August 2010.

Abbott made his tourism funding pledge during a visit to the Tropical North Queensland tourist capital of Cairns, by the Great Barrier Reef. Cairns lies in a marginal Queensland seat that the Coalition is targeting.

Latest polling shows the two parties drawing very close in public support. One poll indicates that that the Coalition has drawn level with Labor in two-party preferred standings.

Abbott?s promised tourism package includes a AUD40 million fund that would provide grants of up to AUD100,000 to build infrastructure for tourism projects, and another AUD14 million fund to provide grants to tourism organisations in regional areas.

The tourism industry, and those who rely on it, will now be waiting to see what Gillard proposes.

Abbott says Labor is partly to blame for the downturn hitting Australia?s tourism industry.

?The spending that we announce today is about sustaining and protecting the 500,000 jobs in tourism,? he said.

The Coalition has already pledged AUD28 million in new money for initiatives to reinvigorate Australia?s business events tourism.

The business events industry currently generates around AUD17.6 billion a year to the economy and employs more than 116,000 people.

The Coalition has said it will also provide an additional AUD10.5 million for Tourism Australia to boost marketing of Business Events Australia, representing an increase of around 50 per cent of the current funding.

Abbott?s proposals may not please everyone in tourism ? particularly in the eco-tourism sector. He plans to overturn the Queensland Government?s Wild Rivers laws if elected ? legislation designed to protect untouched river systems by restricting development. Abbott also wants to suspend plans to ban fishing in parts of the Coral Sea.

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