New Zealand’s desperate plea to Don Farrell: help us save the cruise industry

• Australia’s cruise economy has fallen by more than $1 billion despite booming global demand.
• Cruise leaders say it urgently needs a coordinated national cruise strategy.
• New Zealand has also lost out – and is now urging Australia.

New Zealand’s Tourism Minister is urging counterpart Senator Don Farrell to strengthen cooperation within Australia, as cruise leaders warn that Australia’s fragmented approach, regulatory uncertainty and lack of national coordination are putting future ship deployment at risk.

The Hon. Louise Upston says she has already raised the importance of greater cruise cooperation with Australian Tourism Minister Senator Don Farrell, and will meet him again with the two countries’ futures increasingly intertwined.

“I have met with Australia’s Sen. Don Farrell. I raised the importance of a collab with Australian cruise. I will be meeting again with the Senator in a couple of weeks and I will continue to push for our two countries to align as much as possible.”

Upston’s intervention is significant because New Zealand’s cruise industry is heavily dependent on the Australian market, while ships routinely move between the two countries as part of the same deployment programme.

“We are deeply connected to the Australian cruise market with about 70% from Australia,” she told a meeting of the New Zealand Cruise Association in Auckland. New Zealand is currently 40% down year on year on cruise visitation.

Upston is a poster-girl for the industry. She led a whole-of-government effort alongside the cruise sector to address a sharp decline in passenger numbers, tackling high operating costs, complex biosecurity rules, and regional port fee transparency to win back cruise lines.

She headed a 91-strong delegation to the Miami Seatrade cruise conference early this year.

But the chances of her getting Farrell’s ear is remote. He has managed to dodge calls for him to copy her example with a whole-of-government approach in Australia for months.

Australians are cruising in record numbers, global cruise demand is surging and almost US$100 billion is being committed to new ships.

Yet Australia’s cruise economy has gone backwards, with economic output falling from a record $8.43 billion in 2023/24 to $7.32 billion in 2024/25 which is a $1.11 billion, or 13.2 per cent, decline. The number of jobs supported by the industry also fell from 26,370 to 22,720 full-time equivalent positions.

The latest figures make the contradiction increasingly difficult to ignore: Australian consumers still want to cruise, but Australia is becoming less competitive at attracting and retaining the ships that deliver that demand into the country.

The ships are mobile

Cruise Lines International Association executive director Australasia and Asia Joel Katz says the global cruise industry is in an exceptionally strong position.

Cruising has not simply recovered from the pandemic, he says; it has moved beyond previous records, with strong repeat demand, increasing numbers of first-time cruisers and an enormous pipeline of new ships.

There are currently 86 ships on order globally, representing nearly US$100 billion in future fleet investment. That should represent a major opportunity for Australia.

But it also represents a major competitive threat. “NZ is competing with Australia. Ships are mobile assets. Deployment decisions are made years in advance.”

Cruise lines make those decisions according to a combination of consumer demand, operating costs, port access, regulatory certainty and itinerary efficiency.

For Australia, that means having beautiful destinations is no longer enough. “Confidence, certainty, competitiveness,” Katz says, and his warning is stark. “Opportunity is not the same as inevitability.”

The latest Australian economic figures reinforce the point. The 2024/25 decline was attributed in part to fewer ships visiting Australia, with 68 ships visiting compared with 75 in the previous year. Passenger visit days also fell, while the industry’s direct passenger expenditure declined.

At the same time, the global market is expanding. The question for Australia is therefore not whether there is a cruise market to pursue.

It is whether Australia is creating the conditions that convince cruise lines to deploy their increasingly valuable ships here.

Australia’s missing national approach

This is where Australia’s cruise industry is now calling for a fundamental change in the way the sector is managed.

Australian Cruise Association CEO Jill Abel says the industry is already working with the Federal Government on a range of issues, including regulatory barriers and the Coastal Trading Act.

But she says certainty is needed for the next phase of growth. “We just need that certainty for that next phase of growth.”

The Coastal Trading Act provides the regulatory framework for coastal trading in Australia, and the Federal Government also maintains a specific cruise-vessel exemption instrument under the legislation.

For cruise operators, however, the broader issue is predictability. Abel says the longer uncertainty persists, the more questions it raises for the industry. “The longer it holds out, the more that question arises in people’s minds.”

She also makes clear that cruise cannot be treated as simply another tourism portfolio issue. “It’s not just the tourism side. We’ve got to understand that the infrastructure ministers come into this play as well.”

That is the fundamental problem Australia is now confronting: cruise crosses multiple portfolios and multiple levels of government, while cruise lines make commercial decisions across the entire country and region.

The states have been active. Ports have their own development plans. Tourism bodies are promoting destinations. Industry is lobbying government.

But there is no single national framework connecting all of those efforts. South Australian tourism executive Andrew McKinnon describes the gap bluntly. “In Australia, the states all have strategies and action plans but we don’t have that overarching cohesion from the federal level.”

Katz agrees. “The states have been very proactive in developing our cruise strategy but we don’t have the national approach.”

Most importantly, he has outlined what he believes Australia actually needs. “National cruise plan, brings in what the states are aspiring to achieve and then puts the right policies and regulations in place to facilitate what the states are aiming for.”

That is a much more specific proposition than simply calling for government support. It would mean a national framework capable of bringing together tourism, transport, infrastructure, ports, border agencies, regulators and state governments around a shared cruise objective.

The Australian Cruise Association has now formally identified a coordinated national approach as a priority, with its 2026 strategic action plan calling for policy and regulatory reform, port and terminal infrastructure, destination development, sustainability and regional economic development, alongside engagement across Federal portfolios and all states and territories.

The industry is therefore increasingly moving from “Australia needs a cruise strategy” to a much more practical question:

Who is going to own it, what will it contain, and when will it be delivered?

New Zealand is moving, and needs Australia alongside

New Zealand provides an increasingly relevant comparison because it has recognised that cruise competitiveness requires government, ports, tourism organisations and industry to work as one system.

Upston says New Zealand’s government has moved beyond informal discussion. “The government is serious about cruise. The cruise forum is now up and running. It has shifted from casual conversation. Practical actions for the next 12 months.”

She says New Zealand’s presence at Seatrade alongside Australia is deliberate. “Because the two countries together need to work incredibly closely.”

New Zealand’s approach is focused on rebuilding cruise-line confidence, improving regulatory certainty, strengthening partnerships and making the country easier and more predictable to operate in.

NZ Cruise Association CEO Jacqui Lloyd says the immediate priorities are clear. “Top priorities are to create certainty, stay competitive, rebuild our reputation, grow value and win deployment.”

The goal is not simply to attract passengers. It is to win back ships. Lloyd says the Trans-Tasman relationship creates a significant opportunity for future deployment, particularly from 2028/29. “The window is open. Sydney slots drive NZ itineraries and stronger Trans-Tasman collaboration create an opportunity for growth from 2028/29.”

That timeline matters because cruise lines are already making decisions about where their future fleets will operate.

New Zealand says Australia’s problems affect the whole region

New Zealand’s Associate Minister of Transport and Minister for the South Island, James Meager, says the country’s own cruise ambitions are affected by what happens in Australia. “The challenges in Australia have a viable flow on effect to them coming here.”

He says New Zealand is prepared to have a more active conversation with Australian counterparts. “The risks in Australia have a significant impact here, so we need to have more of those conversations.”

And his message to the industry is unusually direct. “My office and my door is open and I will proactively work on it.” That is because the two markets are not competing in isolation.

Princess Cruises vice-president Asia Pacific Matthew Rutherford says Australia and New Zealand are effectively one deployment proposition for the cruise line. “AU NZ is seen as one, as an Australian deployment. The ships move between the two markets. We are all tied together. If there are issues in one market it impacts the other.”

He says the region has an opportunity to compete more effectively by presenting itself collectively. “We have the advantage where we are quite small and have the opportunity to band together and give a strong proposition for ships.”

The concept being discussed by cruise lines and tourism leaders is increasingly “Team Oceania” not as a replacement for national competition, but as a way of making the entire region more attractive to the global cruise industry.

Royal Caribbean Group’s Josh Dolgoy says cruise is already viewed as a regional opportunity. “It’s definitely seen as a regional opportunity, not separate. We need that united network… for them to work together.”

The problem isn’t Australia’s product

There is striking agreement across the cruise-line community that Australia has the destinations needed to compete. The issue is whether the operating environment allows those destinations to be effectively connected to the ships.

McKinnon says individual destinations can promote themselves endlessly, but ultimately need to work with neighbouring destinations to build stronger itineraries. “I can sell Adelaide till we are blue in the face, but we need to work with our neighbours.”

He says a unified itinerary proposition changes the conversation with cruise lines. “We need to collaborate to get the ships here.”

His most succinct assessment may also be the most important. “We need to reduce the operating friction. The product is solid. Cruise lines can’t plan around uncertainty.”

Dolgoy makes a similar point about government policy. “The product is superb. But from a government policy lens, there’s work to do about being more certain.”

And Abel says Australia and New Zealand have an opportunity to build on what they already do well. “We need both sides of the puzzle.”

That includes destination marketing, but also the less glamorous work of infrastructure, regulation, fees, border processes, port access and operational consistency.

The clock is already ticking

For cruise lines, this is not a theoretical debate about what Australia might do sometime in the future. Ships are planned years ahead.

Rutherford says Princess is preparing its next deployment cycle, with ships placed on sale around two-and-a-half years before departure. Lloyd says New Zealand is targeting the opportunity from 2028/29.

That leaves Australia with a narrowing window in which to improve the conditions under which those decisions are made. Debbie Summers, who led the campaign highlighting New Zealand’s cruise challenges, says the Trans-Tasman relationship makes Australia’s response particularly important. “Aus relies on NZ, NZ relies on Australia. We need Australia to come on quicker than they are.”

And she warns that rebuilding lost deployment will not happen overnight. “The ships and lines we have lost will need winning back and this takes time.”

That is the central warning for Australia. The global cruise industry is growing. New ships are being built. Consumers are demanding cruises. The destinations are here.

But ships are mobile, and cruise lines can choose where to deploy them.

Australia needs to unite

The emerging consensus from Australian industry, New Zealand government and the cruise lines is not that Australia needs to start again. It is that Australia needs to join up what it already has.

The states have strategies. The ports have infrastructure and development plans. Tourism organisations have strong destinations to sell. Australians have demonstrated extraordinary demand for cruising. Cruise lines want to grow in the region. What is missing is the national mechanism to bring those pieces together.

A genuinely useful Australian response would therefore need to go beyond another discussion paper. It would need to identify the regulatory and infrastructure barriers affecting deployment, establish responsibility for resolving them, coordinate Federal and state policy, improve certainty around costs and operating requirements, and create a long-term framework that cruise lines can have confidence in when making deployment decisions.

It would also need to recognise that Australia’s cruise future cannot be separated entirely from New Zealand’s. Upston has already told Farrell that the two countries need to align. Meager says Australia’s problems have a flow-on effect into New Zealand. Cruise lines say they increasingly view Australia and New Zealand as one deployment region.

The opportunity, then, is bigger than either country alone. But the responsibility for Australia’s competitiveness ultimately sits with Australia.

As Jill Abel says, the region has some of the world’s most compelling destinations. The challenge is to be “brilliant at both sides of the equation” — the destination appeal and the operating environment that allows ships to reach it.

Matthew Rutherford describes the task as tending a garden: the work cannot stop once the product has been planted. “Australia has the garden. It now needs to tend it.”

Because the question facing Australian policymakers is no longer whether cruise represents an opportunity. The evidence is already clear: the industry generates billions of dollars, supports tens of thousands of jobs and connects regional communities to international visitors.

The question is whether Australia will create the conditions to capture the next wave of growth. Joel Katz has perhaps summed up the choice best. “Opportunity is not the same as inevitability.”

For Australia, the time for recognising the opportunity is over.

Now it needs to decide who is responsible for delivering it… and start doing it.