India Trade

Ms DIGANCE (Elder) (15:11): My question is to the Minister for Tourism. Can the minister inform the house about his recent trip to India?

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson—Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Tourism, Minister for Recreation and Sport, Minister for Racing) (15:12): I thank the member for the question. I was in India for four days last week, having a lot of meetings about tourism, agriculture and aquaculture. It is a very exciting time coming up for all South Australians, and I urge everyone on both sides of the house to bear in mind that on 15 February next year we will be hosting India v Pakistan in the Cricket World Cup. It will be the biggest TV audience for a cricket match in the history of cricket; over one billion people will tune in and see the Adelaide Oval as these two great teams do battle.

It is a game that we aggressively went after. While other states were trying to secure games with Australia, or a semi-final, we got the biggest game in international cricket. What we are going to do is build around that a business forum, and I would love to get the input from people on both sides of the house to get business leaders from India and from here in South Australia to spend time together over three or four days, to go to the cricket, and to also have roundtable discussions about how Indian investors and businesses can do business with South Australian businesses.

We want to sell more agricultural produce overseas, we want to get more tourists coming here to South Australia, and we want to make sure that the vast mineral resources that we have in this state are exported as well, so that all South Australians can benefit in terms of money coming into our economy and also jobs being created right throughout this great state. We are using cricket in our diplomacy and in our trade development in South Australia.

I hosted two functions—one in Mumbai, one in Delhi—where we had former Indian cricketers along, and at the Mumbai event we even had Shaun Tait. On the eve of his wedding, this great South Australian sportsman, who has worn the baggy green—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: He missed his buck's show.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: He could have been out with his mates, but instead he was hanging with us and the World Cup trophy, and promoting Adelaide and South Australia. The next day, he went off and got married to a local woman from Mumbai. It was terrific to be there with all these top-level Indian business people who are committed to coming out here.

Lachlan Murdoch is in town at the moment, and I caught up with him last night; he is keen to be involved as well. He owns media interests in India, as well as here in South Australia, and that is the sort of level that we want to get to. We want to have top business people from here in South Australia and India come together.

We also had discussions with a lot of food importers and wine importers. It is fair to say that we can do a bit of work to increase the knowledge of South Australian produce throughout India, but I was very pleased with the meeting that we had with the almond importers. Eighty per cent of the almond products here in the Riverland go to India. We talked about some of the staining that happens on the almonds at the moment and they have got some ideas on how we can improve that, to see if we can get the ratio of staining down to about 0.5 per cent, and I will talk to the member for Chaffey about that.

I am also having a meeting with the growers or their representative up in the Riverland this coming weekend. And also, pistachios—they say that if we can produce more pistachios in South Australia they would be willing to buy as many as we can produce. So there are a lot of opportunities in the food, wine and tourism sectors. I think if we can build it all around cultural events, as well as sporting events, and have the businesses coming together next February for the World Cup, it won't just be cricket as the winner. I think South Australia and all those who are employed here or do business here will be winners as well.