Davis Kelvin: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Davis Kelvin: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:665;Page:12685] 
KELVIN DAVIS (Labour) 
: 
 We have heard all the slogans about the rolling maul of initiatives and the brighter future for New Zealand. We have heard how this Government is ambitious for New Zealand and we have heard about the step change. We have heard all the slogans but we have not seen a plan to improve New Zealand. The only thing we have heard in terms of tourism is about “kicking the tyres”. That is what the Prime Minister says but in terms of tourism when we kick the tyres on a cycleway somebody is bound to fall off their bike. 
I tell members what is happening now in tourism: the numbers of domestic tourists—New Zealanders who can afford to go off to have a holiday somewhere around New Zealand—are falling. Domestic tourism has fallen by 10 percent in terms of guest nights over the most recent time. In the North Island guest nights have fallen by 4 percent and in the South Island they have fallen by 9 percent. People cannot not afford these days under this Government to just go off to have a holiday get a bit of rest and get away. That is because nothing this Government has done is putting more money in people’s pockets. People cannot afford to go off on holiday and that is before the 2.4 percent increase in GST and before the emissions trading scheme bumps up the cost of petrol. Even now before all those things have really kicked in people cannot afford to go on holiday. For people in the domestic tourism market it means that moteliers are struggling. 
Dr Rajen Prasad 
: No plan. 
KELVIN DAVIS 
: Because of the lack of plan from this Government people in the tourism industry such as moteliers do not have the numbers of people staying in their motels to enable them to make a living. There is anecdotal evidence that in Hawke’s Bay alone guest nights are down to 10 to 15 percent of capacity. 
The Government’s lack of a plan for New Zealand is having a detrimental effect on the Prime Minister’s ministry—that is the Ministry of Tourism. The big step change has been to consume the Ministry of Tourism into the Ministry of Economic Development. We now have a Minister who does not have a ministry because the whole Ministry of Tourism is being consumed. It is being taken up by the Ministry of Economic Development. I ask the Prime Minister where the unique issues of the tourism sector will be heard who will listen to them and how they will be addressed if the Ministry of Tourism is swallowed up and consumed by the Ministry of Economic Development. It is a backwards step not a step change for the tourism industry in New Zealand. We all know that tourism is right up there as one of New Zealand’s biggest economic earners. It is our second-largest export earner. Quite frankly the people in the domestic tourism scene are struggling just to make ends meet. 
The other step change from the Prime Minister and this Government was mining. If there is one thing that will really damage the New Zealand tourism sector it is to start mining the most pristine areas of our country. Why the Prime Minister as the Minister of Tourism thought that mining and digging up underneath Mount Aspiring National Park Great Barrier Island or the Coromandel would ever be an idea that would fly I do not know. The tourism sector itself has told the Prime Minister that it is not a good idea. It is not “100% Pure New Zealand”; it is 100 percent stupid. Mining New Zealand and our national parks was never ever going to fly. It harms our international reputation. People will not leave their homes in England and Europe to come over here creating a huge carbon footprint through their travel to a country that does not live up to its “100% Pure New Zealand” image and reputation. We have reports from people who ask why they would travel all the way to New Zealand when they could just go to Norway to see lakes rivers and fiords.