NORTH-WEST tourism operator Clint Walker hit the nail on the head in describing a Greens push to introduce a levy on international visitors as “contradictory”. As Mr Walker says: “It’s a contradictory message to say please come here but then we want to put up barriers to you coming.” It’s not difficult to see that slugging visitors with a discriminatory levy – and it is discriminatory if it only applies to international tourists and not those from interstate – would run the risk of doing much more than slow the growth in visitor numbers. Rather, it would say to those tourists cross Tasmania off your itineraries because you are not as welcome here as you are in other parts of Australia.  More than that though, the fact Greens leader Cassy O’Connor would even propose such an idea is a contradiction to the party’s long-stated support for the tourism industry.  Tourism Industry Council Tasmania chief executive Luke Martin made this point well, saying the levy proposal was “a bizarre attack on an industry which the Greens once said was our economic salvation”. Many in forestry and mining would agree with Mr Martin on both counts – the Greens long argued tourism was the alternative to these industries, and now here they are putting the boot in.  In fact, increasingly it is Mr Martin and the industry he represents who are most likely to be found crossing swords with the Greens and their allies. This alone casts serious doubt on the Greens’ claimed support for tourism. For those of us in regional Tasmania, Ms O’Connor’s irresponsible call for a visitor levy demonstrates too how the myopic concerns of their comfortable supporters in Hobart come before all else. Across the North-West and West coasts, we want to see growth continue in tourism – and indeed in other industries – because we value the jobs it creates; we need those jobs. If in a moment of reflection Ms O’Connor ponders why she is the leader of a party of two, and very nearly was the only Green left in Parliament after the March election, then she might consider the interests of those living outside the capital.