Take your leave and spend, workers told
The Australian reports that the Federal Government is moving to unlock Australian employees’ $31 billion in unused annual leave, in an attempt to provide a boost to the economy that would be three times bigger than the payments that start flowing today from the economic stimulus package.
Tourism Minister Martin Ferguson said Tourism Australia would convene a round-table meeting with peak employer groups during the week to launch a campaign to “encourage people to organise their lives at work and at home to actually have a break, and to have a break here in Australia”. The “No Leave, No Life” campaign would promote the concept that workers who took holidays come back to work “with greater energy and satisfaction in their lives, and therefore are better workers”.
Employers would benefit if staff took leave as it accrued, because it cost them progressively more to pay out in later years as wages and salaries rose.
Mr Ferguson has told recipients of the Government’s economic stimulus payments they had a responsibility to use the money to take a domestic holiday.
Australians should shun overseas destinations and inject some of the $10 billion of handouts into the local tourism industry, he said.
“It is the responsibility of all Australians as we go into this Christmas-New Year period to think about mates back home, to actually think about having a holiday, to go to a restaurant or a theme park, to hop on a plane, and to try to make sure we spend those dollars to assist in maintaining jobs for Australians,” Mr Ferguson told a Queensland Tourism Industry Council meeting in Brisbane last week.
Kylie McPherson, an environmental consultant from Norman Park in Brisbane, travels around Australia for work and usually prefers to go overseas for holidays. But the 33-year-old, who will take time over Christmas to visit family interstate, has some accrued leave and will think carefully about the destination of holidays she plans to take in January or February.
“I’d consider holidaying in Australia because of the economy and if there was an additional incentive,” Ms McPherson said.
Mr Ferguson said the Government had accepted its responsibility to pump-prime the economy, and he told tourism leaders it was their job to ensure their industry snared some of the money.
He encouraged Australians to holiday locally after massive growth in offshore travel on the back of the strong Australian dollar in recent years. But with the dollar now lower, it made more sense for them to holiday in their own country.
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