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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-06-14 Daily Xml
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LIV Golf

Adjourned debate on motion of Hon. T.A. Franks:

That this council calls on the South Australian government to table in this council all documents relating to payments or agreements made to host the LIV Golf tournament, including details of money paid from the Major Events Fund or any other state government source to the proponents of the LIV Golf tournament and the Grange Golf Club.

(Continued from 17 May 2023.)

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development, Minister for Forest Industries) (17:01): The first Australian LIV Golf tournament held right here in South Australia was hugely successful. Not only did we see a huge demand for tickets upon release, but the atmosphere during the festival was described by many as phenomenal. The Malinauskas Labor government's election commitment to bring more major events to South Australia is paying huge dividends for our economy.

LIV Golf Adelaide was held in Australia for the first time at the Grange Golf Club from 21 to 23 April 2023. The tournament featured 12 teams and 48 star players, and a total of 77,076 people attended the tournament across the four days, with general admission tickets sold out each day. Over the Friday and Saturday of the tournament there was an average of 9,056 room nights occupied each night. Hotels such as the Sofitel saw a huge uplift in international visitors, reporting that 50 per cent of their guests were from overseas.

Our restaurants and bars were full of tourists spending big in SA—acclaimed restaurant Fugazzi reported that 45 per cent of their bookings for April were from interstate or overseas. This is what our economy needed. I am sure we would all agree that tourism businesses were left shattered by the pandemic. It was up to the Malinauskas Labor government to support them and bring these interstate and international visitors back, and there has been a great sense of pride and momentum within the tourism and hospitality industries in recent weeks.

The state government saw an important opportunity in bringing the very best international golfers to Australia, and felt there was no better place to hold an international tournament than here in South Australia. The golfing community turned out in droves, and we saw this reflected in the party-like atmosphere created at the Grange Golf Course. The event is the most successful LIV Golf tournament in the calendar and proved the public's desire to see the best golfers play here in South Australia.

The success of the tournament was highlighted in the now iconic scenes associated with LIV Golf Adelaide, none more so than the hole in one on the 12th and the huge support given to the likes of Aussie Cameron Smith. It is essential that we deliver these events well and that we continue to attract future events by engaging with event organisers, having regard to the highly competitive nature in which they work. As such, the sponsorship details for LIV Golf Adelaide are subject to contractual confidentiality restrictions. Details and documents relating to payments or agreements for LIV Golf will not be disclosed. On that basis, this motion is opposed.

The Hon. J.S. LEE (Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (17:04): I rise to speak on behalf of the opposition in support of the motion put forward by the Hon. Tammy Franks to call on the South Australian government to table in this council all documents relating to payments or agreements made to host the LIV Golf tournament.

From the first announcement, there have been calls from the public, from the media and from members of the South Australian parliament for the Malinauskas Labor government to be transparent and to review the costs associated with funding the Adelaide LIV Golf tournament. There are so many unknown factors associated with the LIV Golf tournament.

As we learned on 7 June 2023, there was a shock announcement that rival groups PGA Tour, DP World Tour, and LIV Golf had merged to become a larger commercial business. A LIV official conceded there was still a tonne of questions with little light shed on what the future looks like. The South Australian government signed a four-year contract to host the LIV Golf event in Adelaide, but it remains unclear what the new merger means for the future of the tournament.

On ABC radio, the Premier, the Hon. Peter Malinauskas, said that there was another three years of LIV Golf to go in Adelaide under the contracted arrangements. The SA government has entered a four-year deal with LIV Golf only. It is not clear whether the other parties in the merger, such as PGA and the DP World Tour, will accept the current arrangement with the state government.

As has been reported, the large-scale LIV Golf tournament was understood to have a financial dependency on the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. These ties led to a number of stakeholders and institutions characterising the LIV Golf tournament as sportswashing: utilising the golf event to distract from human rights issues in Saudi Arabia. It would be unprecedented if our state government did indeed participate in utilising taxpayers' funds to subsidise an event which was sportswashing human rights abuses as reported.

When these issues were raised by the media, stakeholders and the general public, including the Liberal Party, were inclined to give the Malinauskas government the opportunity to disclose relevant documentation of their own accord, to clear the government of this accusation. However, since the government did not take the opportunity to be transparent and to be up-front with the information, the opposition today is standing with our crossbench colleagues to ensure that the proper documents are indeed disclosed for scrutiny.

We expect the government to have full accountability when it comes to spending taxpayers' money. It is quite simply a matter of public interest. We join the Hon. Tammy Franks in calling on the South Australian government to table in this council all documents relating to payments and agreements made to host the LIV Golf tournament. For the sake of the wider public interest of maintaining transparency and the good name of South Australia, we must know the details of money going from the Major Events Fund and any other state government source to the organisers and promoters of the LIV Golf tournament.

Irrespective of the event in question, South Australian taxpayers deserve to know how their money is being spent, given that this is an internationally questionable arrangement that the Malinauskas government have entered South Australia into. We cannot forget that the Labor government have issues with transparency, which includes the lack of transparency around the Sam Smith concert and questionable tourism campaign funding used to pay TikTokers and other influencers to come to South Australia on a free holiday. We now call on the Malinauskas government to be honest with the people who elected them. South Australians deserve to know.

I once again thank the Hon. Tammy Franks for introducing this motion and urge all members to support this motion so that we can bring some transparency to the question that many have been asking: was my tax dollar used by the Malinauskas government for sportswashing? I am sure all South Australians would like to know the answer.

The Hon. F. PANGALLO (17:09): I rise to say that SA-Best will support this motion. I will point out shortly why this motion has actually now taken a more significant and pressing turn. But before I do that, I will declare that I attended the LIV Golf on the Friday and Saturday as a guest of the Department of the Premier and Cabinet. I will also acknowledge that I enjoyed the tournament immensely. I thought it was fantastically staged and I would like to commend the organisers in South Australia for putting on the tournament at such short notice. I thought the organisation and the execution of the event were first class and the facilities and the entertainment provided to something like 60,000 or 70,000 golf fans—and fans that were not even golf supporters—were quite exceptional.

There was an atmosphere. I attended on both days. I was at the notorious 12th, the 'watering hole'. In fact, I recall when I first walked in on the Friday morning there was a long line of fans waiting to get in, and then as I was going through the entrance I could hear this raucous cheer going on. It just kept going and I thought, 'Wow, what's going on? Are we seeing a succession of holes in one?' or whatever it was. I went to the 12th hole and, of course, it is an area that is surrounded by hospitality areas. It was just jam-packed with fans who were enjoying the festivities. They were enjoying the golf and enjoying the atmosphere that had been created there.

It was something very unique which I have not experienced in any other sporting tournament that I have attended, and I have attended plenty of sporting tournaments around the world over the decades. It reminded me a little of the atmosphere that was generated in Adelaide during the decade Adelaide had the Formula One Grand Prix, such was the joyous feeling amongst the fans. Families that were there with their young children were also enjoying what was being put there. Then, of course, there was the golf itself.

I spent some time watching some golfers who I had never expected I would actually see in my home state. Of course, the PGA tends to stage most of its events overseas and we rarely see important events, save perhaps for the Women's Australian Open golf tournament that was staged here a few times. We rarely get to see those big golf stars, guys like Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia, Talor Gooch, Cameron Smith—a superstar golfer who won the British Open—and a lot of the other LIV golfers who had defected from the PGA to go to that tournament. These types of golfers are players that Australians rarely get to see in action.

It was fantastic to follow Phil Mickelson and his group down a couple of the fairways at the Grange Golf Club and see these players in action, but also in action in an atmosphere that I have not ever witnessed before at a golf tournament. There was music playing and cheering and everything going on. Even when somebody was lining up for a crucial putt, you could still hear the noise and the cheering and everything going on. It was a very unusual atmosphere, and it was also an unusual way of staging golf. It was totally different from the staid tournaments that we are used to seeing, either in person or on television. This was something totally different, and this is perhaps why the fans in South Australia took such a liking to it.

I was speaking to many of them not only in the corporate area but also on my way out, walking out and having a chat to these people. They loved it and could not wait for the next tournament to be played here in South Australia. I think about 40 per cent of the fans who went to the golf were visitors to South Australia. They came from interstate and overseas and there were some who had not been to Adelaide or South Australia before.

Quite clearly, it was a tourist magnet. It came at a time in April shortly after the Mad March activities and other associated live events that were going on, and it saw an influx of so many people into South Australia. It filled our hotels. The hospitality industry was able to bounce back from what had happened during the COVID era. Everyone was really buoyed by the excitement generated by this tournament.

I know there has been criticism of the fact that the money was put up by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, which almost seems to be a bottomless pit. They have $600 billion to spend. There has been constant use of the word 'sportswashing' bandied about in relation to that. Yes, of course, there have been human rights issues with Saudi Arabia but no different from many other countries.

In a speech I made last year in relation to the World Cup, I think I went through an alphabet of countries where there have been human rights issues. Australia is among them. Let's not forget that that is why we are currently looking at having a Voice to Parliament in Canberra, because there were human rights violations against First Nations people. Australia is one of them. We are there as well as a country that has violated human rights. You just go through the alphabet, name them and of course they are there.

Amongst the biggest violators of human rights, apart from the obvious ones like China and Russia, are the United States and Great Britain. There is a bit of hypocrisy when it comes to attacking countries such as Saudi Arabia and others in the gulf for putting up all this money to sponsor sport. Right now, the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund is pouring massive amounts of money into football in that country to try to lift the standard of football in Saudi Arabia. They have bought players like Cristiano Ronaldo, and there are others who will be making their way to Saudi Arabia.

LIV, or the Public Investment Fund, pours a lot of money into the promotion of huge major event concerts, outdoor concerts. We have attended them ourselves. They put money in to finance and bring out huge superstars to this country. I do not hear anyone talking about 'concert washing' when there are concerts that have been put on by LIV. While I am not wanting to totally defend Saudi Arabia, because I have an issue with what happened to Mr Khashoggi, in essence the Saudis put up the money.

I am going to go back to the motion that has been put up by the Hon. Tammy Franks and the reasons why we need to have this investigation. As the Hon. Jing Lee has stated and as the Hon. Tammy Franks has said, there is nothing like transparency and accountability when it comes to the spending of public money. We are talking about public money here. It is no different from the investigation that went on with the influencer Sam Smith and other matters. I do not see there is any reason for the government to try to avoid any scrutiny of what has gone on here.

I will go back to why I now think that this is quite a priority and quite urgent. It is because of what happened last week. I think everyone was taken by surprise when the PGA boss, Jay Monahan, announced that there had been a truce, a peace deal, that had been negotiated with the LIV group and the PIF. It caught everybody by surprise. It caught us by surprise when we heard about it. We were overseas, and I could not believe what had transpired.

We had thought this tournament was secure, but suddenly a peace deal was announced, and it seemed to have taken the LIV CEO, Greg Norman, by total surprise. According to press reports, he had only heard about it minutes before the announcement was made. Cameron Smith, one of the superstars on the LIV tour, had only heard about it minutes before. Many of the LIV players had not heard about this peace deal until it was actually announced by Mr Monahan, who is the chief executive of the PGA.

Quite clearly, there were a lot of talks going on behind the scenes between the PGA, LIV and the PIF to try to secure some kind of a peace in order that golf not be plunged into a massive legal dispute involving the PGA as well as, of course, the European Tour. The peace deal now involves the European Tour going with the PGA and also with LIV. The only problem with this announcement that came out is that very little detail has emerged about the future of LIV tournaments.

We know, as has been pointed out by the Hon. Jing Lee and the Hon. Tammy Franks, the South Australian government signed a four-year deal to put on this event. Neither Mr Monahan nor Mr Al-Rumayyan—he is a Saudi who is likely to be the future chair of the LIV-PIF merger—were able to tell us what the future holds for these tournaments. Are they going to be staged? Are they going to be staged next year?

We have a four-year contract. We need to know what is in that contract, what are the details and what taxpayers are exposed to, or is there a clause in there that actually protects taxpayers from any damages? Can the state also claim damages for any breaches of contract? These are important questions that we actually need to answer.

I will point out here that one of the LIV golfers, Dustin Johnson, claims that he heard straight from Mr Al-Rumayyan, who is going to be the future chair of the LIV-PIF merger, that plans for any combined events outside of majors and select exceptions would not be in place until 2025. He goes on to say that apparently he has been told that LIV is now drawing up its full schedule for 2024. It means that we may well have another LIV tournament next year.

Hopefully, it will come back to Adelaide. Hopefully, it will be at the Grange Golf Course, which did a stupendous job in staging that tournament. But next year could well be the last one of that tournament, which means that there are still two years that we are left running in that contract that has been signed by the South Australian government. Again, we need to know. Where are we going with this tournament? I would actually like to see it return. I would like to see it here in place for a long time, but right now all those balls are up in the air.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. F. PANGALLO: I will give you another one: suddenly, Mr Monahan has sliced the ball into the rough.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Pangallo!

The Hon. F. PANGALLO: You did not like that one?

The PRESIDENT: It was a dad joke.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: No more. Do not encourage him.

The Hon. F. PANGALLO: It is just par for the course.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Pangallo, the Clerk has just told me that you are straying a fair way off the course.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Now you have even got the Clerk joining in, that is what this has descended to. It is a serious topic.

The Hon. F. PANGALLO: Excuse me while I get my pitching wedge out.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Pangallo, let's conclude this.

The Hon. F. PANGALLO: I am getting onto it, because it is an important subject. It is an important sport to this state now, and it is important that taxpayers know the future of this tournament. I have concerns that if the PGA get into this and suddenly start to dictate where these tournaments are going, we are going to miss out. History shows that generally they favour the Eastern States' golf courses, or the Eastern States, for those large tournaments. We have seen the President's Cup and other tournaments that have been staged there. Little states like South Australia tend to miss out.

As this motion puts it, there are questions that need to be answered about where the money is going. We need to know whether the Premier has been contacted by the officials at LIV. Has he been contacted by Greg Norman? Mr Norman was here, he was 'palsy' with everybody on the golf course and he gave his time to everyone. Has Mr Norman called the Premier or called the government to reassure them that this tournament is still going to go ahead, as had been signed in that contract? Do we know if the government or the Premier or major events have been contacted by the PGA themselves to let us know what is going on?

Right now, we are sitting in the dark and we need to know whether this event is going to go ahead, is going to be axed, or is going to be replaced by a new entity that is likely to be set up next year. There are a lot of questions that we need answers to, and we need to know whether or not taxpayers will be exposed to any costs. With that, I will pack up my clubs and move on to the next tee. I commend the motion.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (17:27): I thank those speakers who have made a contribution today: the Hon. Frank Pangallo, the Hon. Jing Lee and the Hon. Clare Scriven. I wish to reflect that this motion now does have quite a renewed relevance for South Australia.

I remind members—as I did in question time yesterday—that the future of LIV Golf is indeed uncertain since this peace deal was brokered just over a week ago, to the surprise of the international sporting community but probably not to the surprise of its proponents, particularly Mr Al-Rumayyan, who is in Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's inner circle and who was considered the mastermind of the Golf Saudi and then LIV Golf projects.

Certainly, Greg Norman was not in the room where these discussions happened, and Greg Norman and his part in LIV Golf have been who the South Australian government have been negotiating with. Norman had been the chief executive since LIV Golf's launch but he has not been seen or heard of much lately, and he certainly was not privy to this brokered peace deal.

I also remind members of this council that the now former PGA commissioner, Jay Monahan, was quoted on 3 June—when asked specifically whether LIV would continue to coexist in its present form in 2024 with concurrent events and LIV branding—in Sports Illustrated as saying:

I can't see that scenario, but I haven't got the full evaluation, the full empirical evaluation of LIV that I'm going to do to be able to comment on that.

He continued:

But I don't see that scenario, no. To me, any scenarios that you're thinking about that bridge between the PGA Tour and LIV would be longer term in nature.

There are many questions remaining. But there are many questions that the South Australian public already had that relate to prior to the peace deal and continue today. While from the government we got effectively a speech that was a press release where we were told it sold out, well, exactly how many tickets were sold and at what profit? What was the return on investment? How much did South Australia pay? How much was taken from the South Australian major events fund, that $40 million put in to last year's budget that was afforded to the next four years of this contract with LIV Golf? What does that contract actually look like? What does it entail? Are there any restrictions?

Certainly, early on in this debate, I was very happy to raise sportswashing concerns, and I will just say that the whole point of sportswashing is not that the sport itself or the event itself is somehow unenjoyable or odious. In fact, the whole point of sportswashing is to associate yourself with something that people enjoy or support—hence the purchase of Newcastle United, 'Away the Geordies, away the lads!' and hence coming to South Australia with a golf tournament that people have enjoyed to associate yourself with something that people support—and wash away the human rights abuses with the enjoyment of sport. That is the point of sportswashing. It is not that sportswashing is something that people in itself find the sport to be odious; indeed, the sport is the good time that is had that is used to detract or deflect.

What I would raise concerns about—and I did at the time—is that, for example, our major events legislation not be used to prohibit protest, and I would hope that we would find no details around intentions to prohibit protest. Before people think that that might be a bridge too far, I note that the international cricketing governing board previously had us rush legislation through this place to ensure that we did not have protesters at international cricket matches at the Adelaide Oval. So we have had a history of sport requiring that sort of dampening of democracy.

This motion is what is called an order of production of documents and it has not been done in South Australia in my time in the parliament, but I see it in other states and territories. I note that in other states and territories their spend on big events, on major events, is far more transparent than it is in South Australia, so there is actually no level playing field here. We can find out more about what other governments do in spending other state budget money for major events than we can here in South Australia. I do not think that is good for democracy and, no matter what your opinion on LIV Golf, I think we are all here to uphold transparency and democracy.

The idea that we have set up a fund through the Premier's department, where a small number of people have picked favourites and we have absolutely no idea what the return on investment is, is outrageous, and most South Australians are wondering really what the point of that is unless it can be proven to have been a worthwhile investment.

So if the government is to be believed with their press release, this will prove it was a worthwhile investment, or let's hope it gives us some certainty that should LIV have loved us and left us that we will have some certainty in the future that we will not be left picking up the bill for an investment we have made, thinking that they would be here for four years, in assets as we have seen with the car race, with requirements to set up an event from scratch that would have been thought would be then costed across four years, not just one or not just two, and made that investment more worthwhile. It will be interesting to see if we are entitled to any recompense if LIV, as I say, has left us after loving us.

I thank again the Hon. Frank Pangallo and SA-Best for their support. I note that both SA-Best and the opposition raised concerns particularly about influencers but I would say that Sam Smith is not an influencer. They are a global superstar. They are a global superstar: they are not an influencer. Sure, influencers attended the Sam Smith d'Arenberg Cube event—

The Hon. F. Pangallo interjecting:

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS: You did. Frank, you did.

The Hon. F. Pangallo interjecting:

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS: Yes, which is why I wrote it down and thought I would correct it. They are a global superstar. The fact that there has been a dog-whistling campaign around the Sam Smith event I think is somewhat unfortunate.

I do think that the events in South Australia need to be run with things like the responsible provision of alcohol and a return on investment being transparent. I point to the auditing work that the Adelaide Fringe had done comparing various events in our state. Some events we enjoy, some events we know are a good return on investment. We should be able to actually know all events and how they are in terms of not just enjoyment but return on investment. With that, I commend the motion.

Motion carried.

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