CLIPSAL 500

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (15:38): My question is to the Premier. Has the government been advised by V8 Supercars boss, Tony Cochrane, that it will cost taxpayers $7 million to $8 million to install lighting for a night V8 car race, and have these discussions suggested that, if the government does not install the lighting, the race could be moved away from March?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier, Minister for State Development) (15:39): I thank the honourable member for his question. The answer to the first part is yes, although our advice is that is a pretty dramatic underestimate of what it would cost to put lighting in the Clipsal V8 event. The answer to the second part of the question is no. In fact, it is a bit the other way around. If the event were to be taken to night racing, it opens up the opportunity of it being shifted to earlier in the year because, apparently, there is some risk to the race, and certainly from the drivers' perspective it becomes a riskier proposition running the event too far into February because of the heat associated with running the event.

This is from the perspective of obviously Mr Cochrane, and he is looking at it from his perspective, and obviously there are opportunities here for him in being able to get a potentially larger, different audience to match up with certain time zones in other parts of the world, but there is no doubt that he presented some of the opportunities that are present in night racing, but we have not yet reached a concluded view about what we are going to do with that proposition. But, certainly it is a bit of an underestimation to say $7 million to $8 million, on our advice.