Sam Smith Concert

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:43): There are serious concerns about the way that this Labor government has been performing, particularly in the tourism portfolio, and it has been absolutely writ large as exemplified by the community, the public and even the government's own response to the Sam Smith influencer concert.

The community since January has been expressing concern, disappointment and even outrage at the fact that the government has seen fit to spend their hard-earned dollars in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis on paying for Sam Smith to do his album and tour launch announcement here in South Australia and host a concert for 300 hand-picked influencers, competition winners and others, including the member for Mawson, down in McLaren Vale, as being the priority that this government has seen fit to use taxpayers' money for.

In recent weeks, we have had increasing rumblings from within the Labor Party itself, and the volume of emails coming from upset unionists concerned about Labor leadership on various issues is a signal, in this opposition's view, of a government uneasy with itself and demonstrating significant unrest. Viewing the Minister for Tourism's performance, it is quite clear that there are members on the Labor backbench who would be eyeing that seat with a sense not of if but when they might get the call-up.

Today, that was writ large even in the actions, the body language, the behaviour and the answers of other ministers of this government. I am advised that, prior to question time, the Premier and staff were seen going to visit the Minister for Tourism and, at the end of question time, visible for all of us to see was the Premier taking questions directed to the Minister for Tourism—not because he wanted to provide information relevant to his particular portfolio responsibility for the Adelaide 500, which he took away from the Minister for Tourism last year, but instead so that he could give his version of a broad-ranging answer in relation to tourism and sports-related events. Notable by its absence was the fact that the Tindalls, about whom the question was asked, to which he took the answer, were not mentioned at all.

Let's go back to step one in this fiasco. Concerns were first raised I think in late January about whether it was a good idea that the government would use taxpayers' money to partner with Frontier Touring, who apparently came to them with this idea: 'Let's put on a concert. Let's give Sam Smith, their management and their record label the opportunity to launch their album here in South Australia and tell people about their tour in South Australia. Let's give them money to do that act,' which of course is a significant benefit to Sam Smith, Sam Smith's touring company and Sam Smith's record company.

The government not only did that but they refused to tell anyone how much money they had spent on doing so. We have an idea now that it was somewhere north of half a million dollars, but the government continues to insist that it was south of a million dollars. The government has been very, very unwilling to talk about the cost of influencers and the hospitality packages that were provided to influencers that were in the order of drinks packages, luxury hotels and the opportunity for influencers to, in the words of one of them on their own TikTok video, 'get a little messed up'.

They indeed then posted about South Australia videos of them being a little messed up. One of them took the opportunity to complain about an influencer 'peeing in the mosh pit', which is another quote. The behaviour of the influencers here on taxpayers' time was defended by South Australian Tourism and the Minister for Tourism, not in the specific but by their general refusal to admit, right up until recently, that anything went wrong. There was a review conducted at the minister's insistence, after about three months of public complaint. The minister and SA Tourism came out and said, 'Actually, we might look at some of those influencer behaviours in the future.'

That review also highlighted one of the other significant problems that the Minister for Tourism has. In January, when defending this idea, she said that Sam Smith has 14 million Instagram followers and a potential reach of 740 million people might see their posts. Then, in March, a government spokesperson said that there were 1.58 billion people who were able to see these posts about South Australia and the Sam Smith influencer concert—more people than tuned in to watch the FIFA World Cup final. Of course, when the review came out, we found out it was actually fewer than five million people—not 740 million as the minister said, or 1½ billion as the government said, but five million people.

Yesterday, we learnt that $32 million of advertising value they had been claiming is also a nonsense because most of it were negative stories, and the minister today gave no answer, no defence, just 45 minutes of demonstrating why this government is not fit to be in charge of tourism in South Australia.