‘It’s like watching a test match’: Saffioti, Whitby frustrate Zempilas’ push on Bears deal

Opposition Leader Basil Zempilas has accused the government of passing the buck on transparency around the Perth Bears NRL deal after a frustrating budget estimates session on Tuesday.

Tourism Minister Reece Whitby and Sport and Recreation Minister Rita Saffioti passed questions to each other over the course of the day about the modelling of the tourism benefits of the $80 million deal to bring the Bears to Perth.

WA Opposition Leader Basil Zempilas.Credit: Hamish Hastie

In the morning session, Zempilas grilled Whitby on whether Tourism WA conducted a cost-benefit analysis to establish the Perth Bears NRL team in WA.

“The process and the decision-making around this issue sit very firmly in the sporting division,” Whitby said.

A frustrated Zempilas then questioned why his queries about the tourism aspect of the Bears could not be answered by the “army of tourism advisers” behind Whitby.

In the later session with Saffioti in her role as sport minister, Zempilas put the same question to her.

“This is the Department of Sport and Recreation, not tourism,” Saffioti replied.

“I will just say that I directed this series of questions at the tourism minister, and was told that they were questions that would be answered in the sport and rec category. So, not wishing to throw anyone under a bus, but that is what happened this morning in this chamber,” Zempilas said later.

Zempilas then pressed Saffioti on how many visitors were expected at Bears games.

Saffioti referred to a publicly released summary of a government-commissioned Acil Allen report that suggested 545 interstate visitors would attend each game, and said she would consider releasing the full report to the public.

Outside estimates, Zempilas said Saffioti and Whitby had passed the buck all day.

“First the tourism minister passes the buck to the sport and recreation minister, who throws it straight back to the tourism minister,” he said.

“It’s like watching a rugby test match. This goes to the lack of transparency and an unwillingness of this government to come clean on a pet project that was not subject to proper process before $65 million of taxpayers’ money was thrown at it.

“And if the tourism minister can’t answer a tourism-related question, and then didn’t let the minister for sport and rec know the question was coming, I have to ask, who’s running the show and who can answer these questions?”

‘Secret shoppers’ put taxi drivers on notice

The first budget estimates of the new parliament had little in the way of fireworks, but there were some interesting nuggets, including a planned undercover sting of taxi drivers not using their meters properly.

Saffioti, in her role as transport minister, revealed she had directed the Department of Transport to conduct a compliance blitz to weed out taxi drivers doing the wrong thing.

Saffioti said her office had received complaints about taxis not turning on their meters, which is against strict regulations that governed the industry.

“I’ve instructed my agency to undertake a compliance blitz to make sure we can have those regulations operating as intended,” she said.

Saffioti said the blitz would include the use of “secret shopper”-style passengers who would report back to the department if they caught a cab and the driver didn’t use the meter correctly.

New Energy Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson also used her sessions to rail against coal, including blaming coal-fired power stations for the majority of the $278 million in taxpayer-funded subsidies of Synergy that have been booked in the budget.

“I note that these figures would be much higher were we not proceeding with a sensible and managed transition out of our coal-fired power stations by 2030,” she said.

“I have always said that our transition out of coal is about economics as much as environment.”

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