The Australian Tourism Minister, Martin Ferguson, is quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald as saying that Australians saving vacation time for overseas trips is a “disgrace” and that “We’ve got to change our own mindset [and get people to realise that] a short break is as good as a long break and encourage people to actually have a holiday in Australia.”
The real disgrace is that a Minister of the Crown thinks he has some business telling private citizens where and how they should take their vacations. And the irony is that the reason people are taking more overseas trips is the high value of the Australian dollar, which is primarily a consequence of the very high demand for Australian commodity exports. Far from causing harm to the Australian economy, increasing outbound tourism is actually a reflection of how well the Australian economy is doing (at least until the China bubble bursts :)).