Pacific School Games

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (14:42): My question is to the Minister for Tourism. Thousands of students from all over the globe will be in Adelaide this weekend for the Pacific School Games. Can the minister tell the house about this inaugural event and what it means for our state?

Mr GARDNER: According to standing order 97, the question has been phrased incorrectly and the member has made an impromptu speech.

The SPEAKER: Let's have a question.

Ms HILDYARD: Can the Minister for Tourism tell the house about the Pacific School Games and what they mean for our state?

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) (14:43): I thank the member for Reynell for that question and for her strong interest in sport and major events. It was great to join with the member for Reynell on Monday when we announced that South Australia will host the women's Australian golf open from next year for the next three years. It was terrific to see you there. The work that you do to promote women's sport and major events is great.

The Pacific School Games kicks off in Adelaide on Saturday. More than 4½ thousand students and their families will be in South Australia for the 10-day event and it will pump about $13.6 million into the state's economy. It is terrific to have people from so many different parts of the Pacific who are here. They will be participating in swimming, diving, softball, baseball, soccer, touch footy, table tennis and basketball. They will be using our world-class facilities, of course, including the swimming centre at Marion, which will also host the Olympic trials next year as people head off to try to make the Australian team to go to Rio.

South Australia does events very well. They are a great contributor to our economy and lead to growth. It was fantastic to be in Sydney last night at the Australian Events Awards, where South Australia was named the best state or territory in the nation when it comes to putting on major events. People were there from around the country and were keen to see what was happening in South Australia. We also won awards for WOMADelaide, Writers' Week and many others, and we were finalists in categories like Best Sports Event and Best Tourism Event as well. So, it was terrific to have South Australia recognised on the national stage as being the best state for putting on events.

If anyone is looking to get accommodation for this weekend or next weekend, it is pretty much booked out in Adelaide because of the AC/DC concert on Saturday night, of course. We have got the—

Mr Pederick: Hear, hear!

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: The member for Hammond will be at the AC/DC concert—rock on. I'll be there with you; it should be fantastic. So, we have AC/DC here, we have got the AFL draft, and of course we have got the equestrian three day event, which is the only four-star event held in the Southern Hemisphere, in our beautiful Parklands. I know from speaking to Alice, one of the competitors who we have here who is competing with her horse Hilly, that they were a little worried about the heat today and yesterday, and they are looking forward to that cool change. We wish all of the competitors the very best.

Major events bring $277 million into the state each year, and of course are responsible for thousands of jobs. We have an ambition to grow the visitor economy from $5.4 billion a year to $8 billion a year by 2020. We want to take the job figure from 31,000 to 41,000. We have put on 1,000 extra jobs in the tourism sector in the past year, and we want to see continued growth in the area as we transform our economy.

I encourage anyone who knows someone who wants to either start out their career or change their career to tell them that the visitor economy is a great place to do it. It is something that we have as one of our top five economic priorities. We are doing everything we possibly can to get more people here from interstate and from overseas. That is why, in this year's budget, we put in an extra $35 million to be used to go after the sort of major events that we are hosting in the next couple of weeks, like the Pacific School Games.

We are also spending money on getting more conventions to our brand new Convention Centre. We are spending more money on marketing, both here in Australia and on the international scene as well, so that we can get as much money from other economies into our economy to really grow South Australia.