General News
17 May, 2022
Goliath The Crocodile Predicts Federal Election Outcome
IN a fun electoral tradition, Goliath the 60-year-old croc at the Cairns ZOOM & Wildlife Dome, took the ‘Croc Poll’ on Tuesday to predict the winner of the upcoming Federal elections.
As part of an ongoing campaign to boost the recovery of tourism in FNQ during the Federal election, tourism industry leaders invited the Liberal and Labor candidates Warren Entsch and Elida Faith to have a chat about the needs of the tourism industry.
At the end of the discussions the candidates shared a lighthearted moment as Goliath, who has had an accuracy of 90% in previous elections, chose Warren Entsch as the winner for Leichhardt.
CaPTA Group Director of Sales & Marketing and Australian Tourism Export Council Board Member Ben Woodward said both candidates were really good sports for participating in this tradition.
“It’s always been a fun tradition we’ve done, it’s a fun and lighthearted way of approaching an election,” Mr Woodward said.
“And it’s been great to have both candidates turn up, it shows that they’re really good sports and they have been very respectful of each other too.”
Winner of the ‘Croc Poll’ and LNP candidate for Leichhardt, Warren Entsch said events like this ease the tensions for everyone.
“Goliath preferred the meat on the right side so I suppose that’s a positive,” Mr Entsch said.
“This is something that is done every election and it’s one of those lighter moments we get to enjoy during campaign.”
Although ALP candidate Elida Faith did not win the favours of Goliath the croc she said her confidence was not shaken.
“I had a word with Goliath prior to but clearly it made no difference,” Ms Faith said.
“I don’t pay any attention to the polls let alone a very handsome 60-year-old croc.
“We’ve got eleven days to go and it’s all systems go.”
Even more important than the prediction was the meeting that tourism industry leaders held with the two candidates about the commitments after the election to the tourism recovery plan.
Mr Woodward said it was critical that political parties committed to reasonable measures that would help the industry get back on their feet in FNQ.
The Australian Tourism Export Council asked all parties to commit to waiving working holiday visa fees for two years, export support to help tourism re-enter overseas markets, deliver a tour guide training and badging program, extra funding, innovative visa policies to promote tourism and invest in transparent payment processes to keep the money in Australia.
Mr Entsch said the conversation with these industry leaders highlighted problems that the LNP are aware of and want to work on.
“The key one is changes to the Export Market Development Grants (EMDG),” he said.
“We’ve been very successful here for an extended period of time but once a market is matured is no longer qualified to go back into the EMDG.
“The reality is that COVID has created a clean slate and those that are disqualified are those that have been most successful in the past and we want to bring those markets back on board.
“We’ve been successful in doing that, we have a $100 million that has been set aside specifically for regional areas like Cairns and Port Douglas, we’ve actually made the concession that the industry will be able to go back into those markets, Japan will be a critical one.”
Ms Faith said it was essential to get to hear these leaders and the actual needs of the industry.
“Something that I heard loud and clear is that they have a new set of problems,” she said.
“That is a skills shortage and a housing crisis. Businesses have told me that they can’t find good skilled workers but, even if they can, that they have nowhere to live.
“We need to invest into skills and training again in Australia, the Morrison Government has completely neglected this sector that’s why Labor’s plan for feefree TAFE is exactly what we need in FNQ.
“Our future made in Australia is going to create 465,000 fee-free TAFE in skill shortage areas that means that our school-leavers are going to have more opportunities and people who want to upskill or re-skill have these opportunities.
“We want to train local and stay local.”
