Tourism Promotion Appearance Fees

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (15:08): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before addressing a question to the Minister for Tourism on the topic of appearance fees.

Leave granted.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS: As members are well aware and as the issue of the secret appearance fees for Lance Armstrong highlighted for many years—and indeed it was later revealed that we had employed SAPOL and STAR Force to provide security for Mr Armstrong back in the day—minister Ridgway in his previous guise has long called for transparency around appearance fees with regard to money spent, from the South Australian purse, in the attempt to bring in tourism.

My question to the minister is: will he stand by his calls for transparency, that he made in opposition, and—while I will acknowledge that some commercial-in-confidence considerations may take precedence—guarantee that appearance fees will not be subject to contracts in perpetuity of secrecy and that a two or three-year period should be given before those fees be disclosed to the public?

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment) (15:09): I thank the honourable member for her question. She joins with all of us in how we were outraged at the time that we discovered that the deal that the former government had done with Lance Armstrong was a 10-year secret deal. We are aware that, of course, there was a range of other details, like SAPOL and the security arrangements around Mr Armstrong. I don't have any details on that because it is all secret, but I think at the time there may also have been a house rented for him to reside in with his entourage.

Certainly, I have been quite outspoken in relation to transparency. Yes, there are often commercial-in-confidence issues, whether they are individuals or we are negotiating with other companies, other sporting codes or the promoters of events. I had questions a few weeks ago about MasterChef. That is something that was signed prior to the change of government. Pretty much everything that we are dealing with now has been signed by the former government, and I have all of those.

The Hon. R.P. Wortley interjecting:

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: I know you shouldn't respond to interjections, Mr President, but there are some good things that happened. Tourism is one of the things that has enjoyed bipartisan support. Look at the Tour Down Under, the Adelaide 500, all sorts of things.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: Point of order. We are already some time into this answer and there hasn't been a single attempt to even come close to answering the question.

The PRESIDENT: I am not accepting that. I am not finding in favour of yourself, the Hon. Kyam Maher, on this point of order. The minister is responding directly to the Lance Armstrong query and coming to previous contracts—

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Absolutely.

The PRESIDENT: —whether signed by the previous government or this one.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Prior to the election, we said we would like to have a greater level of transparency. As a result, I have asked the Tourism Commission to have a look at the contracts that we can offer to people, because I think it is important to have people. We saw recently that Zaheer Khan, the former opening bowler for the Indian cricket team, and his wife came here. My understanding at that time was that they were paid not an appearance fee but some hotel and flights to come here because they have between them 14 million followers on Instagram and Twitter, which is another way of promoting our great tourism opportunities in South Australia.

There is a range of deals that are done with people from all over the world. I have asked the Tourism Commission to have a look at what we can do to have a greater level of openness and transparency but still giving the South Australian tourism operators some world-class people to promote their offerings. It is a bit of a challenge.

I agree with the honourable member in her question, that the 10-year deal offered to Lance Armstrong was excessive. We are looking at a range of options and we are talking to people that we may try to contract to do that sort of work for South Australia as to what would be seen as a reasonable amount of time for that commercial-in-confidence to exist, for that period, whether it is a year or two years after the event, whether it is a one-off event or whether it is an ongoing event.

As you saw, last Friday night we had the Sydney Roosters and Melbourne Storm play an NRL match. We had one last year, we have another one next year, and it culminates in the NRL State of Origin in 2020. You can see that that is a four-year arrangement. It was signed by the previous government, but you can understand why. You can't talk about the actual fees paid for all that until well after the event, because it lasts for more than just one year.

The member can rest assured that we are looking at it and we are trying to come up with a mechanism that will allow greater transparency but still give our tourism operators and our industry a chance to promote ourselves in the best possible way to the whole world.