Grievance Debate

Port Adelaide Football Club Game Day Village

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee) (15:07): I rise to talk about an issue that emerged in the media over the past week and that is the disgraceful treatment of the Port Adelaide Football Club by the Adelaide Oval Stadium Management Authority. Last week, the media reported Port's complaints about how it had been treated by the SMA over Port's Game Day Village. The response from Andrew Daniels at the SMA was extraordinary. Mr Daniels told the media:

Any accusations that the SMA in some way have tried to undermine the Game Day Village are totally wrong and we completely reject them.

On ABC radio, Ali Clarke questioned Mr Daniels:

So you didn't make it any harder for them because Port Adelaide was offering cheaper beers outside your stadium?

Mr Daniels responded:

It is the most scurrilous, outrageous, disgraceful accusation I have ever heard in my entire career. I can't be more strong than that, it is totally wrong.

We now know, of course, the truth behind the shameful treatment of the Port Adelaide Football Club by the SMA over this village. We know that it is in fact Mr Daniels who is totally incorrect, that it is actually his comments that are scurrilous, outrageous and disgraceful. And we know that Port Adelaide's claims are, in fact, correct.

In 2014, Port developed its Game Day Village, sitting on Tennis SA land next to Adelaide Oval. The village offered Port fans a place to meet before the game and have a beer—actually, a $5 beer, several dollars cheaper than beers inside Adelaide Oval. It only took weeks until in June 2014 the SMA wrote to Port Adelaide threatening to block access to the Game Day Village, demanding that beers be sold at higher prices, that Lion Nathan beer be served and that all signage be removed.

Port resisted, but the threats and the intimidation from the SMA continued, both to Port and to Tennis SA, which was allowing Port to use its liquor licence. Eventually, these threats and intimidation from the SMA forced Port into accepting SMA demands so that by the 2016 season the SMA was supportive of the village because Port had been forced into giving the $30,000 to $40,000 a year in Game Day Village profits to the SANFL

Reluctantly, Port met these demands because it knew its fans wanted the village to continue. It is the written support from the SMA for the 2016 Game Day Village that the SMA's private spin doctors selectively leaked to the media this week to give the impression that the SMA always supported the village concept. This was deliberately dishonest and deceptive.

In 2017, the village was not offered, but a backlash from Port fans about losing its village that season led Port to having to sit down with the SMA for the 2018 season. In 2018, the village was run by the SMA with their extortionate beer prices and, again, Port did not get the profits. Last week, Port Adelaide was right: the SMA had made it as hard as possible for Port to operate its Game Day Village and fans were the losers with higher beer prices.

Why is this all important? It is important because it is a window into a pattern of deliberately misleading and deceptive behaviour by the SMA. It is this same SMA that are asking South Australians to believe them about why they need a new hotel at Adelaide Oval. It is this same SMA that is telling us why they need a taxpayer-funded $42 million loan from the Liberal government.

But just like its claims on the Game Day Village drama, unfortunately, the SMA has not been up-front about this hotel proposal. We have variously been told that the SMA needed the hotel so its profits could be used to better maintain the Oval. Then we were told that Adelaide Oval needed the hotel to compete against Marvel Stadium in Melbourne. Then we were told that the profits were needed so the hotel could invest in women's sport. As the reasons continued to change, Matthew Abraham commented on 5AA that it is 'the hotel we need for world peace'.

But the story has also changed about the government loan. We were told by both the government and the SMA that it was too hard for the SMA to get a commercial loan, that it was, to quote Andrew Daniels, 'very, very complex' and that, as a result, the government had to provide the loan. That is not true either. We know the Commonwealth Bank offered the loan. We know it only needed some equity from the SMA and its shareholders—the SACA and the SANFL—of approximately $13 million. We know the SACA was prepared to put up its half of the equity, and the SACA understood the SANFL was considering putting up its share. So why did the SMA need the government loan?

Of course, it did not need it. It is just another example of why the SMA has not told us the full story about the hotel and the loan. We are now at the point where the SMA cannot be relied upon for the facts and the whole story about what is going on at the Oval. If we cannot rely on the SMA to be honest about the Oval, or to treat the two AFL clubs properly, and if we cannot rely on them to ensure fans are not being extorted for higher beer prices, perhaps the SMA and its leadership should not be the ones superintending the Oval. I have one last suggestion to Mr Daniels: perhaps he could pick the phone up and apologise to the Port Adelaide Football Club.

The SPEAKER: I call the member who was the first player to kick a goal against the Power, the member for Morphett.