Nori out – O’Neill in – well sort of……….industry breathes a sigh of relief!

With outgoing Tourism Minister Sandra Nori, having failed to gain pre-selection in her seat of Port Jackson for the forthcoming NSW State elections, State Premier Morris Iemma in what could be seen as some pre-election panic vote-catching and what appears to be a last ditch pre-election attempt to get Sydney and NSW back on the events map, has this week appointed former ARU and Soccer Australia boss John O’Neill to review what NSW can do to attract more tourism, a major crisis the industry has been telling a him about since his appointment as Premier.

It is also reported that Mr O’Neill rejected the bigger job of heading the major events corporation for NSW due to a conflict of interest with his Board position at Tourism Australia.

With outgoing Minister Sandra Nori considered by the industry since her appointment to have been “fiddling while Rome burns”, in this case watching and doing very little as Brisbane and Melbourne won all the big events, industry leaders and analysts say that Morris Iemma’s action is way too little, way too late with the State Government and in particular Tourism New South Wales having lost virtually all credibility with the tourism industry.

Comments made by industry leaders and analysts include that although TNSW has been effectively absorbed into State and Regional Development, it has become irrelevant, particularly in regional New South Wales and that it is time to go back to the drawing board and start again, which many industry leaders hope Mr O’Neill will do, with this Mr O’Neill not to be confused with the current CEO of TNSW, also John O’Neill.

Interestingly Mr O’Neill’s appointment for an undisclosed sum, is for only three months, taking him over the election period, with nothing going to happen until after the election, whichever party is elected.

It is also reported that Federal Minster for Tourism Fran Bailey, a very outspoken critic of State Minister Nori and the NSW Government’s failure to invest in tourism, irately called Mr O’Neill, expressing her concern that he might be taking a more significant role with the new corporation, with Mr O’Neill reassuring her and clarifying his position.

Although Morris Iemma announced Mr O’Neill’s appointment on Tuesday in front of the multi billion dollar Queen Mary 2, bringing several million dollars of tourism cash into Sydney and surrounds, in what appears to have been a limelight stealing attempt which failed, he did not take that one single magical step that would have reassured the struggling State tourism industry, by allocating additional funds, except for Mr O’Neill’s fee, with TNSW budgets having been slashed $54.1 million in FY 2002/03 to $46.1 million in FY 2006/07, with prior slashes estimated to have totalled in excess of $4m since 2000.

Premier Iemma, appearing confident of being re-elected said that after the three months the Government would “make decisions on how to improve the state’s flagging tourism prospects”, with Mr O’Neill also helping to setting up a major events corporation – something all other states did many, many years ago and highly successfully!

In the meantime, as we head towards the State election, the opposition Coalition has promised if they are elected they will spend $160 million over four years on tourism and events, also considered to be too little for the State’s major industry and it has also said it would set up a major events corporation.

Report by The Mole