None of the 15,000 ticket holders for conservative influencer Candace Owens’ cancelled Australian tour are expected to get their money back from the promoter, after it spent all its money then collapsed.
Owens herself says she is hundreds of thousands of dollars out of pocket and claims she was misled by the promoter, Rocksman, a company with links to the influential conservative lobby group Turning Point Australia.
Rocksman collapsed with just 21 Australian cents in its bank account and will never refund Owens, her Australian ticket holders or other creditors, according to its liquidator’s statutory report to creditors, filed with Asic and dated 3 March.
Owens is a rightwing commentator who has since had a public falling out with Donald Trump.
Her 2024 Australian tour was delayed then cancelled after the Australian government refused to give her a visa as she had the “capacity to incite discord”, a decision the high court backed in October.
Joel Jammal, the head of Turning Point Australia and a sponsor for the tour, said he believed it sold 15,000 tickets, which started at $95 and ranged up to $1,500 for VIP tickets, suggesting Rocksman sold at least $1.4m worth of tickets.
But Rocksman was declared broke after entering liquidation in December. Its liquidator, David Sampson, reported that refunds would be impossible as Rocksman had no insurance to cover the tour’s cancellation and had spent all its money. According to the report the sole director and shareholder of the company is George Zacharia.
Owens claims to be among those owed money: her spokesperson said Rocksman had promised to cover the costs of challenging her visa refusal at the high court.
“Candace’s team ended up paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills, as well as providing numerous loans to Rocksman to make refunds [before] it became apparent that their assurances were meaningless,” the spokesperson said.
Owens’ spokesperson said she only learned of the company’s liquidation through the Guardian’s reporting in January.
“Right up until the last day, they were still promising us that refunds were just around the corner,” Owens’ spokesperson alleged.
The tour’s main sponsor, bullion dealer As Good As Gold, has also claimed to be owed.
Its co-director Jarrad Panes said Rocksman told him their $80,000 sponsorship would be refunded in 2025 but it was never repaid. “It’s like, what have you done with all of this money?” Panes said.
Rocksman’s rise and fall
The tour was arranged by three men who had previously collaborated on rightwing speaking tours: George Zacharia, and two men not formally connected to Rocksman, Damien Costas and Joel Jammal.
Costas, a former South Australian Liberal party staffer, formerly published the Penthouse porn magazine through a series of companies which each collapsed into liquidation. He was briefly bankrupted for failing to pay Penthouse’s printer, TMA.
In 2017 and 2018 he organised successful tours with rightwing firebrand Milo Yiannopoulos and Nigel Farage but backed another that collapsed when Yiannopoulos, Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes and UK activist Tommy Robinson failed to secure visas.
Costas helped Jammal set up Turning Point Australia, the local offshoot of Charlie Kirk’s former US group, which the pair launched with another tour for Farage in 2022.
Jammal said Zacharia helped with the Farage tour and set up the Rocksman company, which donated to Turning Point in 2023 for its campaign in the New South Wales election.
Jammal said the donation was unrelated to Owens’ tour.
“I categorically reject any suggestion of impropriety or of receiving favourable treatment from Rocksman,” Jammal said.
Jammal and Costas went on to organise a 2023 Donald Trump Jr tour, which was repeatedly delayed and then cancelled after selling a reported 8,000 tickets, most of which were refunded after nearly a year of delays.
Rocksman and Jammal began planning a tour for Tucker Carlson in early 2024, but Carlson instead toured with Clive Palmer.
Costas then engaged Owens to speak and set up and ran parts of the tour, according to Owens’ spokesperson.
Jammal said Costas had “significant input” into the logistics and program. Business records show Costas also owned the payments merchant for the tour’s ticket sales. Costas declined to comment but he and Jammal denied involvement in the company’s financial management.
Jammal told ticket holders they would be refunded after Owens’ high court challenge failed. Jammal told the Guardian he had relied on assurances from Rocksman.
“I was not aware of any insolvency issues or broader financial difficulties within Rocksman at the time I communicated publicly that refunds would be issued,” Jammal said.
“Turning Point Australia’s involvement was limited to acting as a sponsor and assisting with promotion.”
Jammal’s podcast and newspaper were the secondary sponsors of the tour. He referred questions on Rocksman’s spending to Zacharia, who he said had organised the event.
Zacharia, Rocksman’s director and sole officeholder, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Accounting records indicate Rocksman owed him at least $24,000 in unpaid leave entitlements when it collapsed.
The liquidator’s preliminary investigations indicated the company may have traded while insolvent. He identified debts of more than $760,000 to creditors including employees and ticket holders.
The report also considered whether there were any transactions entered into by the company while it was insolvent that might be voidable and from which money might be recovered for creditors. He identified $385,000 worth of transactions that might be “unreasonable director-related transactions … in favour of a director, a close associate of the director or to a person on behalf of [either]”. He said more investigation would be needed to determine the nature of these transactions and if there are claims available.
Sampson, the liquidator, wrote in his report he would advise the corporate regulator Rocksman had breached the Corporations Act by failing to maintain and reconcile its financial records. The report also advised creditors Rocksman did not have enough funds available to commence legal proceedings to recover their money. When contacted by the Guardian, he declined to comment further on how the money was spent.
