Report questions lack of transparency over Destination NSW spending

The NSW Government’s spending on major events has been criticised for a lack of transparency in a report in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Questioning Destination NSW’s failure to reveal its spending on specific events each year and what returns it makes on its investments, the newspaper has been through a three-year battle to obtain the information under Freedom of Information laws.

However, last week saw NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal Senior Member Deborah Dinnen reject Destination NSW’s argument that it was not in the public interest to disclose information regarding the funding of events and key organisations such as the Sydney Festival and Art Gallery of NSW and ordered the agency to disclose documents revealing how it lands major tourism events and how much it spends on them.

Dinnen told the Sydney Morning Herald “there will always be a tension between market competition and open and accessible government, but the GIPA Act places obligations on government to ensure that access to information takes precedence, by placing the presumption on disclosure.

“(DNSW’s) attitude throughout the course of dealing with this access application indicates that it does not understand, or is in disagreement with the correct application of these obligations.”

Some of the events supported by DNSW have been successful while others have been ridiculed by critics and shunned by audiences.

Its major success, Vivid Sydney - owned, managed and produced by Destination NSW -has grown into one of the city's biggest cultural events with 2.3 million attending the 2017 festival bringing an injection of $143 million into the NSW economy.

Instances of poor returns on investment include The Addams Family musical, which received funding from the agency but closed early in 2013 after poor ticket sales.

The Sydney Sings festival in 2016 also saw the public purse lose at least $1 million after being cancelled. However, the exact amount is unknown as the agency refused requests for confirmation of the total amount saying it was “commercial in confidence”.

According to its 2016/17 Annual Report, Destination NSW has an annual budget of $159.7 million, with Chief Executive Sandra Chipchase paid $452,250 (plus allowances). The annual report also lists the agency’s hefty expenses such as ‘advertising’ ($30.9 million) and ‘promotion’ ($95.2 million).

Destination NSW rebuffed the Sydney Morning Herald’s request for documents about its spending, claiming an “overriding public interest” against disclosing why and how much it spent on these events, triggering the long-running quest to uncover documents how it spends taxpayers' money.

Residents of Newcastle have been fighting Destination NSW's secrecy for years to obtain details about the Newcastle 500 Supercars event, which they claim has harmed local businesses, damaged their homes, affected the health of vulnerable people and disrupted their lives.

In her forthcoming book Wrong Track: What Drove Supercars to Newcastle, Christine Everingham writes “the Newcastle 500 clearly illustrates how state sponsored - yet privately owned - major events, provide the perfect cover for deals to be done without the inconvenience of public scrutiny."

Images: Vivid Sydney (top) and Sandra Chipchase (below).