Opinion

The decision by the Minister for Tourism not to provide Parliament with information on the amount of funding provided for the Margaret River Gourmet Escape in 2017 was reasonable and appropriate.

Background

On 16 October 2017, as part of the 2017-18 Estimates and Financial Operations Committee budget estimates hearings, Hon Dr Steve Thomas MLC asked for the following information:

Noting the nearly $40 million budget for event tourism and given that the Gourmet Escape in Margaret River is due to begin on 17 November, has a decision been made on whether to provide funding for that event? If a decision has been made, can we get the level of funding that has been provided; or, if funding has been declined, or if no decision has been made at this point, given the short time frame, can I ask when a decision will be made?

On 3 November 2017, the Minister for Tourism wrote to the Committee advising that he would not provide the information requested on the amount of funding, replying:

Yes, funding for the 2017 Margaret River Gourmet Escape is committed. A decision for the 2018 event will be made at around the time of this year’s event.

The amount of funding for the 2017 Margaret River Gourmet Escape is considered commercially sensitive.

On 8 November 2017, the Auditor General received notification of the Minister’s decision not to provide the requested information in accordance with section 82 of the FM Act.

Key findings

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

The Minister did not seek advice from the Department of Jobs, Tourism, Science and Innovation (Department) before responding to the request. However, the Department subsequently provided advice to the Minister on 7 November 2017, confirming the Minister’s decision that the information was commercially sensitive and should not be provided to Parliament. We have reminded the Department and the Minister’s office that it is good practice for agencies to provide a documented assessment prior to Ministers declining to provide information to Parliament.

The Department’s advice was based on an assessment against its Policy and Guidelines: Release of Event Sponsorship and/or other Commercial Information. As we have found previously, this document provides suitable criteria for assessing if information is commercially sensitive.

The Department concluded that the funding information had a commercial value and its release could compromise the ability to successfully attract, develop, retain, or negotiate for the event in the future, causing commercial harm to the State.

The Minister’s decision and the Department’s conclusion were sound, based on the following:

• the 2017 event funding was not generally known
• the highly competitive nature of the global events market
• the event 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 by using knowledge of the sponsorship amount to outbid WA for the event or negotiate with the event holder for a similar event outside of WA
• the Department was considering funding arrangements for future events at the time.

In our view, the Minister’s decision not to disclose 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.