Great State Voucher Scheme

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (15:45): During this COVID pandemic, there have been a number of occasions when Labor has congratulated the federal and state governments on the jobs they are doing. Of course, the government has had the benefit of Labor making the decision to work on a bipartisan basis, in the interests of making sure that South Australians and Australians get through this COVID pandemic as well as possible.

Unfortunately, though, the state government has dropped the ball on too many occasions and recently we saw a classic case with the accommodation vouchers. The program was poorly planned and, even worse, it was poorly implemented. I have heard many stories of people who simply could not get through to claim vouchers when they went online.

The day after the latest release of the travel vouchers they were unavailable, and if people were unsuccessful the first time and thought they would try again in January, well, bad luck, in too many cases they missed out again. How did the authorities handing out these vouchers tell people that they missed out? Let me quote word for word the message received by those who missed out:

Wow, that was popular! There are no more Great State Vouchers available; we're sorry you missed out.

For many, that rather ordinary piece of writing may as well have said, 'Bad luck, you missed out again,' because for too many people that was the case.

If we want to create a sense of community and support each other, this is not the way to implement this sort of scheme. You do not release vouchers for those quick or lucky enough to get them. You offer them to every single South Australian who wants to use them—just once—to visit a region and support the local tourism industry. It is the way we ensure goodwill of local businesses and towards our fellow South Australians.

Perhaps the government should have worked harder with the tourism and accommodation industries to ensure that a resolution could be reached to make sure that everyone got to take advantage of the $100 discount for city areas and $50 for suburban and regional areas. The reason we needed to make the regional and suburban discounts only 50 per cent of the city vouchers is another issue. In many cases, the regions are doing it tough and need the greatest support.

Those figures are also worth reviewing. The discounts of $50 for a stay in regional South Australia and $100 for city stays relate to the rack rate. Let's use regional accommodation as an example. Often when you visit Wotif or Lastminute or Hotels.com, you get a room for $30 to $40 less than the rack rate. By the time you pay the standard fee, the rack rate, and then get your $50 discount, you could be getting no more than a $10 discount on your night's accommodation.

I think the accommodation vouchers issued here and in other states are a commendable idea, but they are only as good as the mechanics of how they are rolled out. When most South Australians cannot get hold of a voucher in the first place, and then others gain very little benefit from using them, it is worse than not offering them at all. Why? Because at this time particularly, we should be encouraging people to stay local and making every part of the night away, from booking the accommodation to the arrival and the stay, a very positive experience. Unfortunately, the shabby way this has been handled makes people less likely to travel and stay local. If it costs just as much to stay locally as it does to stay somewhere interstate, how do we expect this to play out and how will this all work out now that we are free to travel across the borders?

The idea of vouchers is not just to allow South Australians to stay here when they have very little alternative: it is to encourage them to stay local regardless of their travel opportunities and take advantage of all this state has to offer. I would also like to know how many of the vouchers that were given were not used, because there are a lot of people who would have been given these vouchers who just did not use them.

There must be some process by which we can ensure, as much as we can, that the people who get these vouchers use them. Can people apply for a number of vouchers? If so, there should be some sort of method by which we can see how many are actually used. Let's hope the next time the state government comes up with an idea of backing local businesses and communities they spare a thought for the local people they are supposed to be supporting.