Thursday, 22 February 2024

Formula One Australian Grand Prix

Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (18:25): (736) My adjournment is to the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events. At a time when so many Victorians are suffering through the cost-of-living crisis, Victorian Labor continues to subsidise Formula One in a sweetheart funding deal. Last year the state lost a staggering $100 million-plus to the grand prix event. That is bitter news for the thousands of public servants currently being sacked by this government, and no doubt this year’s grand prix will also cost Victoria dearly. It beggars belief that Victoria provides corporate welfare to an international conglomerate while sacking workers and capping the wages of remaining public staff, while ordinary people are struggling to put food on the table and are having to make awful choices between buying everyday essentials and paying the rent during this cost-of-living crisis.

The latest dodgy deal, which delivered this staggering grand prix loss, was negotiated personally by former Premier Daniel Andrews in an extraordinary intervention. As was reported at the time, inside sources held:

… a view that, had the Victorian government held its nerve and trusted negotiations to those most qualified to conduct them, it might have kept the race for less.

Worse still, at the end of last year it was revealed that the financial hole Labor has dug is even deeper. In Victoria’s secret contract with Liberty Media, the $12.4 billion Colorado-based company that owns Formula One, Daniel Andrews apparently agreed to meet the cost of new or substantially refurbished corporate hospitality facilities at Albert Park’s track but at the same time forgo all revenue generated at the venue. You literally cannot make this stuff up. It is a scenario worthy of Yes Minister – or in this case, Yes Premier.

As well as the financial hit on the state budget, the impacts of this event on the park and local community are severe and deeply unfair. For a four-day event the local community and the 20 sporting clubs based in the park are locked out of great swathes of the open space for months every year as the F1 infrastructure is built and then removed very slowly. Minister, it is your responsibility to end the toxic culture of secrecy and deception that has been a hallmark of this government in relation to this issue. The people of Victoria deserve to know how their money is being spent. The action I seek is for the minister to release all documents relating to the grand prix contract, its finances and the subsidies being provided.