Tuesday, 15 August 2023

Visit Victoria

Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (16:27): (385) My adjournment this evening is to the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events. As one of the first acts of the newly elected Andrews Labor government in 2014, Tourism Victoria was merged with the Victorian Major Events Company to create a single private company called Visit Victoria. Visit Victoria is the only state tourism board in Australia that does not have to comply with a freedom-of-information act. As such it is able to act with significantly less public oversight than its peer organisations.

In June of this year the Saturday Paper reported that Visit Victoria paid the Betoota Advocate for friendly coverage promoting travel to Victoria. I am not suggesting that there is anything untoward in that, but it does beg the question: what else is the agency paying for? The Saturday Paper submitted an FOI request about payments made to Betoota for the favourable articles, and in response the Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions said:

Visit Victoria operates as a company limited by guarantee, with the Premier of Victoria being the sole shareholder. As a company, Visit Victoria is not subjected to the FOI Act.

Add into this analysis the fact that Visit Victoria receives public funding of more than half a billion dollars per year. This means half a billion dollars of public funding is being spent by a private agency with governance arrangements that mean it can operate with less oversight than any other tourism board in the country. Even in a good year this does not pass the pub test, and in a year when we are having very frequent and often weekly or daily discussions in the public sphere about integrity and government, it does not pass the test.

We should consider reforms where all private companies that receive public funding are subject to the Freedom of Information Act 1982, but that is a wider conversation for another day. My adjournment matter today is for a more limited and specific request, I ask the minister to exercise their power to make Visit Victoria a prescribed authority in the Freedom of Information Act. This can be achieved by regulations rather than a legislative change; it is a smaller change within the minister’s powers that can be achieved simply and quickly.