AFTA update

From AFTA’s chief executive, Jayson Westbury

SO, SUPER Saturday turned out to be a bit of a fizzle with absolutely nothing changing really.

After all the talk and all the stories and all the could go either way, the results were that Labor held the seats of Braddon, Fremantle, Longman and Perth and the Centre Alliance Party retaining Mayo.

In fact, in all these seats there was a swing towards the seated party. So I guess if nothing else these electorates don’t have much time for the issues presented by section 44 of the Australian constitution as many of the people involved in these seats are the same.

So an outstanding use of taxpayer’s money to have by-elections that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to put us all right back to the same place. I guess that is what makes the Australian democracy so cool?

So now all of the commentators will turn their attention to the two major party leaders, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

There will be a few weeks of who should do what to whom, come, go, change, not change, but in the end my prediction is that we will be all same no change at the helm and put this all down to a really interesting use of everyone’s time and helpful in the context of the Federal Parliament winter recess.

The real game in town resumes on the 13th August when our politicians return to Canberra to get on with the next phase of running and we hope improving our country, economy and our lives. We will have to wait and see. On a totally unrelated note, AFTA has moved office after 36 years. It is a little sad, as there is a lot of history that went with 309 Pitt Street, plenty of planning, plotting, talking, moving and shaking and for many in the travel industry there will be long memories of our former office.

But now we turn our thinking to the new phase of AFTA at 31 Market Street. No doubt there will be plenty of new talks, planning, moving and shaking that will go on in the new digs and for the small team at AFTA (we are only 12 people) it is a really exciting time as we settle into our new working environment.

I mention this mainly so that anyone that is reading this changes their contact details for AFTA to, Suite 3, Level 31, 31 Market Street Sydney, with all email and phone contacts remaining the same.

At AFTA it is all same with a change, not really the same as the case in Canberra. Exciting times ahead.