Beverly McArthur, MP, Western Victoria Region, Media Release, 12 August 2021
The Avalon Airshow is the latest cancellation on Victoria’s beleaguered tourism and event industry calendar.
It joins the F1 Grand Prix, Agricultural shows, major theatre productions, music and arts festivals, crowd-less horse racing and AFL, empty ski fields, and other events either limited – such as ANZAC Day gatherings – or postponed due to the COVID -19 restrictions.
The business events sector alone is worth $12 billion to the Victorian economy.
Bev McArthur, Member for Western Victoria, was one of four Liberal and National MP signatories to a Minority Report recently tabled into the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Tourism and Events Sectors.
The Minority Report made 10 Recommendations, including the need for rapid testing to help open the tourism and events sectors sooner and more reliably.
Mrs McArthur said Melbourne’s additional seven days of lockdown, and the ongoing restrictive regulations in regional Victoria, are devastating the industries.
“The Jack-in-a box response to small numbers of COVID-19 cases has obliterated confidence.
“Event organisers have lost confidence to plan and the community has lost the confidence to book knowing everything can change in an hour or two,” Mrs McArthur said.
The Minority Report was critical of Victoria’s Chief Health Officer, Professor Brett Sutton, for failing to answer the Committee’s questions. It described him as ‘mute’ and ‘A witness who would not answer key questions’.
“The Minority Report found Professor Sutton in open contempt of the Committee for his refusal to answer legitimate questions concerning his secrecy and his refusal to release briefings and background documents behind public health orders that affect the tourism and events sectors.
“In particular, Professor Sutton refused to detail the reasoning and documentation behind Melbourne’s curfew,” she said.
150 submissions were received by the Inquiry with many more signatories.
Submitters indicated that the events and tourism sectors should be seen independently, a position adopted in the Minority Report. David Davis, Wendy Lovell and Melina Bath joined Mrs McArthur as signatories to the Minority Report.
They highlighted the plight now facing event organisers trying to get insurance.
“This issue is a nightmare today – and it will not go away any time soon. Insurers have no interest in backing events that the Victorian Government can stop with a click of a finger, or in which a COVID-case might be traced back to someone at the event.
“This effectively stymies opportunities across the state.”
The Minority Report placed urgency on the need for the insurance impasse to be resolved – pointing to the models already in places like Denmark, the UK, Germany, Austria, WA and Tasmania– and recommended the underwriting of event insurance via a scheme involving the Victorian Managed Insurance Authority and the Insurance Council of Australia. It would fill a gap currently inhibiting the event sector.
The Port Fairy Folk Festival highlighted the financial impediment caused by highly restrictive density limits. 10,000 ticket sales are required to make the festival a success, but the guidelines allowed for half of that, despite requiring the full measure of tents and infrastructure to meet the density rules.
The President of the Port Fairy Folk Festival, John Young, told the Inquiry “…it costs the same. The model economically does not work without that full capacity.”
The Minority Report also highlighted the lack of transparency behind the Public Health Orders (PHOs). Many inquiry submissions described the PHOs as incomprehensible.
With 11,200 tourism jobs and an estimated annual visitor spend of $1.5 billion, Business Victoria told the Inquiry that the Great Ocean Road region was the “…most adversely affected Victorian region by COVID-19…” with the tourism spend shrinking by 25 per cent to the end of June 2020.
“But we are more than a year on from those statistics and deep into Lockdown 6.0,” Mrs McArthur said.
“Melbourne can’t travel, regional Victorians can barely move and the borders are shut.
“Victoria’s State of Disaster finished on 8th November 2020 and was ‘not renewed’.
“But given what has happened since, it’s hard to say the events and tourism sector is still not in a state of disaster.”
