Speaking from Virgin’s launch of the initiative at the Currumbin Surf Life Saving Club, Mr Lawlor said he was thrilled Virgin had agreed to incorporate beach safety messages during in-flight entertainment.
“The Queensland Government has been pushing for more to be done about beach safety for several months now, and it’s fantastic to see an airline like Virgin getting on board with this,” Mr Lawlor said.
“Virgin has been very responsive since the issue was first raised in January and I congratulate them on their initiative.”
Mr Lawlor said Surf Life Saving Queensland (SLSQ) had developed the 30-second community service announcement which would be aired on all domestic Virgin flights from June.
“The State Government has been working closely with SLSQ for several months now and as always, they’ve been doing an absolutely marvellous job,” he said.
“The clip they’ve produced features real Queensland beaches and lifeguards, with key safety messages displayed on the screen, so even passengers without earphones will get the message to swim between the flags.
“This is a great step to ensuring the importance of beach safety is realised by all visitors to our beaches, and I hope other airlines will follow suit and take similar action.”
Mr Lawlor said he was prompted to review beach safety awareness after a number of drownings on the Gold Coast earlier this year.
“We held meetings in January and April with key stakeholders to discuss what more could be done to prevent further incidents.
“Following the tragic deaths of three people in January, I wrote to a large number of organisations including airlines, asking industry to do what they could to help and the response was generally very positive,” Mr Lawlor said.
“I also wrote to the Federal Tourism Minister Martin Ferguson, requesting the issue be raised at the Tourism Ministers’ Council which was held on 30 April.
“The safety of visitors to our beaches is paramount, not just in Queensland but throughout Australia, so I really thought this should be addressed at a national level,” he said.
Mr Lawlor said Minister Ferguson had agreed to put the matter on the agenda and the outcome had been the commitment of the states and territories to develop and distribute marketing materials on beach safety, available in eight languages, in time for the next beach season.
“The Federal, State and Territory Governments will also continue discussions with other airlines in the hope they’ll follow Virgin’s lead to incorporate in-flight visitor safety messages,” Mr Lawlor said.
“Ideally, it’d be great to see these sorts of messages included on both domestic and international flights and that is something we will work towards,” he said.
“The Queensland Government is committed to beach safety, that’s why we recently announced a $100,000 campaign for education and awareness activities to target multicultural communities and those visitors deemed to be most at-risk.”
Minister Palaszczuk said the national ‘On the Same Wave’ program is being delivered through SLSQ.
“This campaign is about getting Queenslanders from diverse and non-English speaking backgrounds to swim between the flags,” Ms Palaszczuk said.
“Getting the surf and water safety message out into the State’s multicultural communities is one of my top priorities.
“Caps, t-shirts and brochures containing surf safety messages have been translated into 18 languages, and these will be distributed in the community by the end of the month.
“Qualified surf life savers will soon be conducting education workshops in schools and water safety sessions on our beaches.
“I’ll be visiting Milperra State High School in Brisbane this month, where newly arrived refugee and immigrant students will take part in the first surf education workshop under this program.
“We’re doing everything we can to ensure Queensland’s multicultural community is getting the message to ‘swim between the flags’.”
