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As before, my aim has been to seek common ground. Thanks to constructive pre-budget engagement, key priorities of Opposition members have been included alongside the priorities of the Government in my budget plans today.
I do not have actual numbers for previous years with me today, but I can say that we have not yet quite got back to pre-pandemic levels. There has been an upwards trajectory over the past four years, but visitor numbers have not quite reached pre-pandemic levels again.
However, we are looking at that in the current period and are very mindful that, with the election coming up, there are some challenges about pre-committing too far into the future.
That used to happen, but we stopped doing that shift pre-Covid—perhaps around 2017. We took that nurse out, because they would literally just sit there.
A high number of vacancies are being posted—it is higher than the pre-pandemic level. We also see lots of evidence of employers having recruitment challenges.