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Speaker 1: Good morning and welcome to the Daily os. It's Thursday,

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Speaker 1: the first of April. My name is Sam Kazlowski and

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Speaker 1: helping me make sense of today's news is Zara Sidelock.

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Speaker 1: Making news today, Nationals MP resigns, COVID report released some

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Speaker 1: good news about the Maldives and.

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Speaker 2: A breakdown of the tourism bounce back. Here's today's Daily digest.

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Speaker 1: Upper Hunter Nationals MP Michael Johnson has resigned from the

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Speaker 1: New South Wales Parliament after allegedly sexually assaulting a sex worker.

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Speaker 3: Just in case you forgot, this is a story we

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Speaker 3: were talking about yesterday and the Nationals leader John Barrolaro

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Speaker 3: yesterday asked for his.

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Speaker 2: Resignation and it's now come a day later.

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Speaker 1: The announcement followed the news that Johnson had also allegedly

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Speaker 1: paid the woman one thousand dollars for sex. In the

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Speaker 1: New South Wales Parliament, House Premier glad To Spiagiclan addressed

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Speaker 1: the resignation, saying I have not seen that statement, but

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Speaker 1: I am very relieved. That is a good outcome. This

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Speaker 1: means there's going to be a byelot in the seat

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Speaker 1: of Upper Hunter.

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Speaker 3: Sam, don't tempt me for an explainer on by elections.

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Speaker 3: But that will be coming.

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Speaker 2: Don't you worry.

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Speaker 3: Now Onto COVID news. The long awaited report into the

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Speaker 3: spread of COVID nineteen by the WHO has been released,

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Speaker 3: with scientists finding the virus was circulating in wet markets

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Speaker 3: as early as December twenty nineteen. The report, which was

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Speaker 3: written by thirty four scientists from China and around the world,

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Speaker 3: found the virus had likely been transmitted from bats to

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Speaker 3: humans through another animal, and a lab leak was extremely unlikely.

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Speaker 3: Some nations, including Australia, have been critical of this study.

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Speaker 3: A joint statement from fourteen nations noted the significant delay

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Speaker 3: of the study and that it lacked access to complete

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Speaker 3: original data and samples.

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Speaker 1: The federal Labour Party has promised to cut import and

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Speaker 1: other federal taxes on electric vehicles to reduce retail price

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Speaker 1: and incentivize uptake if they win the next federal election.

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Speaker 1: At its national conference yesterday, Labour committed to the installation

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Speaker 1: of four hundred community batteries in side subs ends at

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Speaker 1: helping and estimated one hundred thousand households access cheaper power.

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Speaker 1: It's expected these measures would cost two hundred million dollars

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Speaker 1: over three years and would commence in mid twenty twenty two.

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Speaker 3: To the good news and please don't come at me

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Speaker 3: for my pronunciation here, the Maldives will ban imports on

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Speaker 3: certain single use plastics from June twenty twenty one.

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Speaker 2: Some of the items include drinking.

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Speaker 3: Straws, plates, cutleries, stirs, lunch boxes and carrier bags. Other

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Speaker 3: items will be banned in phases over the coming years,

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Speaker 3: with these efforts to be paired with strategic awareness and

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Speaker 3: educational campaigns to encourage eco friendly habits within the country.

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Speaker 1: Now, if Oprah was to be walking around the streets

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Speaker 1: of Australia, she would be screaming out today you get

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Speaker 1: a flight. You get a flight because today is the

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Speaker 1: first day where update one hundred thousand half price airfares

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Speaker 1: are going on sale. This is all part of the

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Speaker 1: government's plan to boost tourism. But what I wanted to

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Speaker 1: look at with you guys today was how the tourism

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Speaker 1: sector is actually going leading into this big boom with.

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Speaker 3: Brisbin been in lockdown and Bluesfest canceled at the last minute.

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Speaker 3: What do you think about confidence in traveling? I know

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Speaker 3: that a lot of friends might not feel confident enough

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Speaker 3: to book a domestic trip with the fear that it

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Speaker 3: will get canceled like so many things did in twenty twenty.

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Speaker 1: There's definitely been better timings to launch a huge domestic

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Speaker 1: travel push, especially in light of everything that happened up

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Speaker 1: in Byron and in Queensland yesterday. According to the latest

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Speaker 1: research from around the tourism sector, they believe Australians will

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Speaker 1: be confident to travel again, especially with half price flights

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Speaker 1: around Australia.

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Speaker 3: But just on that, it wasn't the tourism industry who

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Speaker 3: have created this incentive. It's a federal government led initiative and.

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Speaker 1: It's a federal government led initiative targeted solely at keeping

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Speaker 1: the airlines afloat. But even within the tourism sector, different

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Speaker 1: parts of the sector feel different levels of confident. It's

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Speaker 1: quite a diverse sector. You've got some high confidence at

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Speaker 1: the moment with accommodation and food services as well as

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Speaker 1: obviously the airlines, but positions in areas like retail, travel,

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Speaker 1: education and travel agents are still struggling. The Australian Bureau

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Speaker 1: of Statistics says we're not going to see that tourism

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Speaker 1: value added industry bounce back until international travel is back

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Speaker 1: on the cards. The government's hoping that an eight million

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Speaker 1: dollar advertising campaign which promotes the fifteen tourism regions included

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Speaker 1: as part of the Cheap Flights initiative will help open

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Speaker 1: Australia's eyes to the adventures you can have at home. However,

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Speaker 1: there's an increasing amount of research that tells us that

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Speaker 1: this is not the end of the tourism nightmare for

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Speaker 1: the sector. If we dive deep into the job's stats,

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Speaker 1: we've seen a five point one percent increase in tourism

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Speaker 1: field jobs in the December quarter, which is about fifty

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Speaker 1: eight thousand jobs added in Australia since the absolute low

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Speaker 1: in June twenty twenty. ABS figures indicates that tourism has

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Speaker 1: recovered about four out of ten field jobs lost during

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Speaker 1: the pandemic already, and to put that in perspective of

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Speaker 1: the total economy, the total economy fil rate is about

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Speaker 1: seven out of ten jobs lost. But we're going to

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Speaker 1: continue to see a massive gap in the tourism market

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Speaker 1: until international travel does come back. International travel in Australia

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Speaker 1: brings not only the nine million visitors who shop and

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Speaker 1: eat and spend in Australia, but forty five billion dollars annually.

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Speaker 1: That will remain dead for now. We expect the news

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Speaker 1: today and in the coming days to be dominated by

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Speaker 1: messages from the government about how tourism is back. Deputy

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Speaker 1: Prime Minister Michael McCormack is saying planes in the air

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Speaker 1: means jobs on the ground and these half priced flights

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Speaker 1: will help more Australians have their dream holiday at home. Now.

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Speaker 1: That might be true, and the bosses of Quantestant Virgin

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Speaker 1: have expressed how much this will save their sector. But

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Speaker 1: what I wanted to think about was how diverse the

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Speaker 1: tourism sector is and how many jobs it really impacts

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Speaker 1: in Australia. Even Tourism Australia made this admission, they said

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Speaker 1: this week there's only so much demand we can get

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Speaker 1: from the domestic audience. So for traveling Aussies to make

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Speaker 1: up for theational expenditure, they'd have to take about four

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Speaker 1: trips a year and that's a lot of travel.

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Speaker 3: When we think about what's next for travel in Australia,

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Speaker 3: the trans tasmin bubble is within the immediate future, and

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Speaker 3: Jacin daar Durn last week said you'd have more to

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Speaker 3: say about that at the beginning of April. We don't

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Speaker 3: know how the recent outbreak in Brisbane might affect that,

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Speaker 3: but it's definitely on the horizon of international governments to

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Speaker 3: start creating bubbles with countries like Australia who have managed

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Speaker 3: in large part to suppress the outbreaks of COVID nineteen.

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Speaker 3: On that note, I am off to book my trip

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Speaker 3: to the Northern Territory, but in the meantime, please follow

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Speaker 3: the day's news on Instagram at.

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Speaker 2: The Daily OS.

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Speaker 3: It's where over one hundred thousand Australians get their news

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Speaker 3: throughout the day

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Speaker 2: And we'd love you to become part of the community.