Ridgway wants lid off still-secret tourism probe
Feb 15, 2012
Hon David Ridgway MLC
Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council
Shadow Minister for Urban Development & Planning
Shadow Minister for Economic Development
Shadow Minister for Tourism
Ridgway wants lid off still-secret tourism probe
“How long does it take to conduct an investigation? Is eight months enough?” Shadow Tourism Minister David Ridgway wants to know.
On the 22 of June, 2011, the Deputy Premier and then-Tourism Minister John Rau announced an Auditor-General’s inquiry into an apparent scandal surrounding the privatisation of the State’s main tourist information centre.
“Eight months later, we still haven’t seen the results of that investigation,” Mr Ridgway said.
“This supposed open and transparent Weatherill Government is in reality closed and opaque.”
In what the tourist industry - a major, $4 billion a year enterprise in this State, regards as a dumb and illogical move – the Government moved the popular, well-sited tourism information centre from its highly visible King William Street location to an underground bunker in Grenfell Street.
There were subsequent questions over the ownership of the Grenfell Street building and that of a private company to which tourism information services were outsourced.
The results of that investigation have never been released. There’s been no announcement from Mr Rau, or from his successor, Gail Gago, that the inquiry has been completed, what it found, and what it recommended.
“Ms Gago must this week do the decent thing, and share it with us. Either that, or she should repudiate Mr Weatherill’s mantra of open and transparent Government,” Mr Ridgway said.