The decision by the Minister not to provide the requested information was reasonable and therefore appropriate.

The Minister properly sought advice from the Western Australian Tourism Commission (Tourism WA) before responding to the request. Tourism WA recommended the Minister decline to provide the information given the commercially sensitive nature of the information.

Tourism WA’s recommendation was based on an assessment against its Release of Event Sponsorship Information and/or other Commercial Information Policy and Guidelines.

As we have found previously, this document provides suitable criteria for assessing if information is commercially sensitive.

Tourism WA concluded that the funding information for the 5 events had a commercial value and its disclosure could compromise the ability to successfully attract, retain, develop, or negotiate the events in the future, causing commercial harm to the State.

The Minister’s decision and Tourism WA’s conclusion were sound, as:

• the amount of 2019-20 funding allocated for each of the 5 events was not generally known
• other destinations are known to actively compete for these kinds of events
• the events could become more expensive to secure and retain if other destinations knew how much the WA government was willing to pay
• other jurisdictions could gain an unfair advantage and use this knowledge to outbid WA for the events.

In our view, the Minister’s decision not to release the information is consistent with the public interest of protecting and reducing the risk of damage to the financial and commercial affairs of the State.