Sadly some mischievous troublemaker has directed my
attention to a report tabled in State parliament. This report purports to shed
some light on the Gourmet Escape Event.
Now I confess to having no interest in the Gourmet
Escape. For me it is not a SW event.
For me it appeared to be an over-hyped event that was the antithesis of
sustainable living. It isn’t that I don’t appreciate the people who came were
hugely popular and well worth taking note of. I just believe we should all try
to live with much more emphasis on our locality. I stayed at Rick Stein’s hotel
in Padstow and ate his wonderful meals, it was a great experience. Rick Stein has
developed Padstow and although some locals may not always like what he has done, may not relish the crowds, they will agree he has developed Padstow with integrity. He has not brought Woollies
to Padstow. When you visit Padstow you have a local experience, just as you can
enjoy so many good food cultures around the UK and Europe.
I attended the Gourmet Escape only out of curiosity and because
the desperate attempts of local volunteer groups to offload tickets eventually
wore me down. All the folk I met there were attending in a similar capacity and
had complementary tickets.
When I read some of the questions raised in parliament
they seemed reasonable, but they remained unanswered. It appears that lessons
were learned after the frank exchanges around the ISAF event funded by Tourism
WA. No more comments such as Kim Hames, Minister for Tourism, was willing to give
back in 2012;
“What
I have said to Tourism WA is that I don’t want us to worry too much about
return on investment. In all the events we do, I want to stop the focus on
return on investment and have events that are fantastic for WA. If it ends up
as $30 million or $40 million, I don’t really care.”
He also made comments that indicated his complete lack of
empathy for local people who lost money. Now it seems we have a similar
situation here in Margaret River.
As I said earlier my only involvement was to attend for a
few hours courtesy of a free ticket, but this morning I received the report on
the event tabled for parliament. It reminded me of the Tourism WA material
offered to the community to justify the moving of the Cowaramup transfer
station. Long on numbers that might baffle us, but maybe the truth has suffered
along the way.
The complete report can be downloaded here;
The only tiny detail I’d like to comment on is the postcode
data, and specifically the postcode data for Karridale. (You all knew it would be
about Karridale eventually) I wasn't asked for my postcode as I didn't buy a ticket. This is the page from the report, Karridale is 6288.
Maybe these results are not exactly surprising, except for a couple of considerations.
First it claims to
be reporting people who bought tickets, not those of us who went for
free.
Second it seems to be in conflict with alleged data that
another consultancy has already reported on Karridale. The Creating Communities
consultancy, as recommended by Brian Burke and Nigel Satterley, has already been
commissioned and reported on Karridale in the CCA – SoAMR Community Facilities Plan
Final 3 May 12. The whole report can be downloaded, the population of Karridale is mentioned on page 24. (not sure what the images are intended to portray, that wheel reminds me of the London, and certainly nothing local, maybe its some infrastructure the management are about to delight us with; The Margaret River Eye?)
This report shows that there were only 30 people in Karridale in 2006, and we won’t reach the dizzy heights of 51 people until 2031.
When you look at the attendance figure for Augusta, a measly 31, it's clear that Karridale was doing more than it's share to support the Gourmet Escape.
This report shows that there were only 30 people in Karridale in 2006, and we won’t reach the dizzy heights of 51 people until 2031.
When you look at the attendance figure for Augusta, a measly 31, it's clear that Karridale was doing more than it's share to support the Gourmet Escape.
It’s just detail of course, nothing to be bothered about
at all. People like me are just nit picky, looking into the numbers as if they
matter. All we need to know is that the event was FANTASTIC for WA (Inc?)
It could be argued that the postcode covers the wider Karridale area and so all the hoards who live at Nillup, Warner Glen and Alex Bridge were included. It could be that, but my money is on the proposition that if any of those residents attended then they too would have got their tickets courtesy of the Red Cross, Bushfire Brigades, SES or similar.
We do appear to have a huge number of consultancy
contracts being acquitted by the production of reports with no integrity, on
events with no value, and for which there is no government accountability. This
applies at the local, state and federal level. Unless those reports provide information that we can rely on, in a form that we can understand, are they worth the spend?
We are denied all the financial data needed to understand what the costs and benefits of the Gourmet Escape were, but the following snippets did appear in the press. We, the taxpayers paid over $10 million dollars, much of it to a London based event organiser, in order to generate $10.5 million dollars spend in our region. Are we really getting value for money? Can we estimate how much would have been spent in our region without the $10 million dollars being sent to London?
Profitability isn't always about size of spend or return. If we invested $1 million in developing an event and it only returned $1.1 million it would be more profitable than a spend of $10m achieving $10.5m
Local people could create an event with authenticity and integrity that we could all enjoy, it just wouldn't be beneficial to the international corporations.
