SOUTH AUSTRALIAN TRAVEL CENTRE

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (14:30): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking yet another question of the Minister for Tourism regarding the continuing nightmare in her portfolio.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: The South Australian Travel Centre is the Tourism Commission's crown jewel. It is where visitors drop in, pick up brochures, make bookings, find out where to go and what to see. It handles hundreds and thousands of inquiries a year. But the minister has turned a silk purse into a sow's ear. The Travel Centre is in chaos.

The travel information officers have been told with less than a week's notice that their contracts will not be renewed. In three days they will be unemployed; they will be jobless. Those who did manage to hang on to their jobs did so after a 30-minute interview for which they had only three hours' notice. Other travel officers who had the interview the next day overheard the questions and had all the answers ready, and they passed the exams. The opposition has also been informed that this new office will offer no booking services at the site. My questions are:

1. How many staff will now work at the new Travel Centre?

2. How many have had their employment terminated?

3. Why are you increasing the number of managers and the size of your bureaucracy while removing and sacking front line staff?

4. Does this now mean the Travel Centre will be like a shop facade—a fully dressed window but inside no sales, nothing to sell and no booking service?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Tourism, Minister for the Status of Women) (14:32): I thank the member for his question. Again, we find that the opposition come into this place time and time again, and all they can do is bag this state, bag our tourism industry. They are a disgrace. The visitor centre service that will operate will provide online internet services. There will be staff there to assist people with their online booking, if they require it. It is absolute nonsense. They will be there; they will be able to assist people in their booking.

The tourism services have changed considerably over the years because public demand has changed considerably. I know that the Hon. David Ridgway has a lot of trouble keeping up with technology, but in fact there are fewer people who want a person-to-person counter service. More people have shifted to online services; in fact, most people now go to the visitor service centre to obtain information and then they take that information away and they like to make their own bookings, so the demand on our booking service has diminished considerably over the years. We have changed the service to meet growing demand, and that is about being online. There will be staff there. Currently, there are five FTEs employed under the previous arrangements, and the new arrangements will mean that there are 4.8 FTEs providing visitor information services.