Public Works Committee: Memorial Drive Centre Court Development

Mr CREGAN (Kavel) (11:23): I move:

That the 20^th report of the committee, entitled Tennis SA Memorial Drive Centre Court Development, be noted.

May I take this opportunity to make a number of remarks in relation to the preparation of this report and to outline the scope of this very important project. The Public Works Committee has considered a proposal by Tennis SA to develop the centre court facilities at Memorial Drive. Those facilities will be developed into an international stadium facility that will be suitable for all weather conditions.

I know that this proposal has been met with great excitement by participants who support tennis in South Australia, supporters and fans, and also by the government. It is a significant proposal, it is a significant investment, and I am pleased that this government is bringing it forward. The committee heard that the proposal would be achieved by demolishing the existing roofs at the northern and southern stands, and associated structure, and the construction of a new architecturally designed roof structure to replace the structures that will be demolished in the course of the works outlined to the committee.

Once completed, the new structure will cover the existing centre court platform area and the northern and southern grandstands. The fabric roof material will be similar to the fabric roof material covering the upgraded Adelaide Oval southern grandstand. The scope of these proposed works will further include new lighting, fencing and a refurbishment of the existing tennis courts. It is anticipated that the new roof structure will facilitate use of the centre court area for other events, including a year-round training facility for the national tennis academy and a major community space for concerts and community events, a pleasing second use for a very significant facility available to the whole state.

The committee has heard that the proposed works are necessary so that Adelaide is positioned to host the International Tennis Federation and Women's Tennis Association events in January 2020. The project is expected to benefit tennis in South Australia significantly and it is expected that, once these works are completed, the facilities will also attract concerts, community events and other high-profile sports, such as netball and basketball, to the Memorial Drive centre court complex. I mentioned earlier and I emphasise that this will be a significant community facility available to the state located close to the Adelaide Oval complex, and no doubt there will be some synergies from that location.

The funding partners for the proposed work will include Tennis South Australia, Tennis Australia and the South Australian government, and the estimated total cost is $11 million, including a $10 million grant from the Office for Recreation, Sport and Racing. Practical completion is expected to be timely, with completion by December 2019 to ensure that the facility is available for Adelaide to host the International Tennis Federation and Women's Tennis Association events in January 2020, to which I alluded.

The Public Works Committee has examined a range of written and oral evidence regarding the centre court development project. We have also heard that all relevant assurances and acquittals have been received from the Department of Treasury and Finance, Premier and Cabinet and the Crown Solicitor. As such, the committee is satisfied that the project proposal has been subject to the agency oversight consultation that we expect and also meets the criteria for the examination of projects, which you, Mr Speaker, will know are described in the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991.

Based on the evidence considered, and pursuant to section 12C of the Parliamentary Committees Act, which directs us to matters relevant to the work we do on our committee, the Public Works Committee reports to parliament that it recommends the proposed public work.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD (Gibson—Minister for Police, Emergency Services and Correctional Services, Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing) (11:27): I rise with great joy to speak on this matter and thank the Public Works Committee for their wonderful work. This is a really exciting project for South Australia, as has been outlined by the Presiding Member. We have a great opportunity here in South Australia, and the government saw that opportunity and took that opportunity. We brought forward this investment of $10 million into Memorial Drive to put a roof on this facility, and we are very excited by that.

We are very proud that, since coming into government, we have put more than $100 million into sport in South Australia in a number of key projects right across the state—from soccer, to cycling, to the Women's Memorial Playing Fields, to local community infrastructure as well. Unisex change rooms at local clubs are being rolled out as we speak. I know the member for Waite is excited about what is coming in his local community. Also, there is lighting infrastructure, and we are making sure that we are getting as many people active as possible. I will talk more about that in a second, but more on this project at Memorial Drive.

As I said, we had an opportunity to bring forward this $10 million investment. We needed to do that in a timely manner, and I thank my cabinet colleagues for their support with this project. As has been outlined, this has meant that we have secured a WTA and an ATP tennis tournament event in South Australia. We had the men's ATP tournament here more than a decade ago. Since then, we have had the World Tennis Challenge, which was nice and a bit of fun, but now we have serious tennis back here at Memorial Drive, the home of tennis in South Australia, which I think is exciting. The men's event is coming back—we stole that from Sydney—and that is a big thumbs up for our state.

What I am even more excited about is the WTA event, a women's professional event, which we have not had before. I think we are going to see some absolutely fantastic names come along with that event as well, so that will be truly exciting. Of course, it was great to see Ash Barty win the French Open recently, and Wimbledon is just around the corner. I can tell you that phone calls are already being made. We are doing everything we can to try to get Ash here to Adelaide and other big names as well.

It was very exciting at the launch. We had a sod-turning just a little while ago to start work on this project to put the roof on Memorial Drive. Darren Cahill was there, a great South Australian, a player and a coach. He coached Simona Halep, the great Lleyton Hewitt and Andre Agassi to all be world number one. John Fitzgerald was there as well. Every time I see Fitzy, the smile on his face around this project is absolutely huge.

His quote on this was something along the lines of this being the most exciting thing to happen in tennis in Adelaide in his lifetime. That is how important it is. To have the Cockaleechie Kid, a tennis great of our state and our nation, saying such positive things is truly outstanding. This event is going to be exciting. At the start of the year, every year in the lead-up to the Australian Open, there will be a men's and women's tennis tournament back in Adelaide. It is going to be truly superb.

I note that the committee will work through the project and discuss other opportunities, potentially for other sports and concerts. This venue will be alongside the Adelaide Oval and will complement it, with the heritage of the drive and heritage of the Oval coming together to give us another great facility to use. It will be outstanding for other sporting events, for community events and for concerts and festivals.

I also thank the member for West Torrens, who is part of this committee. I see that he had no questions in this process. He said, 'The opposition is fully supportive of the project. I congratulate them and well done.' I thank him for his bipartisan support because this will be a great win for South Australia. It has been a long time coming, but we are very happy to be delivering on this.

I mentioned the other projects that we have invested in already: soccer, cycling and the Women's Memorial Playing Fields. There are tens of millions of dollars involved in those projects, but, again, at the grassroots level that is what we are very keen on. We want to get more people active, more people playing sport in South Australia, from a young age, right the way through. We know how important that is. If people are active, it is great for their health. We know it is great for physical health, for mental health and for social wellbeing as well. There are plenty of positives to come out of being involved in sport and it is something that this government is very focused on.

As an aside to that, we announced the Sports Vouchers program when we came to government. That is giving every primary school person who wants to play sport at a local club $100 back in the pockets of their family budget. It really helps with those fees. When you play at a local sporting club, the fees do jack up, especially if you have more than one child. Think about that: two, three or four children all going through primary school playing sport at the local sporting club; that is up to $200, $300, $400 back in the family budget to help out with the cost of living—a real winner in the local community. I know it has been greatly received.

In total, that is $29 million injected back into sport to make sure we have young people playing, starting out their sporting careers, getting involved in a club, learning values and seeing how good it is to be involved in community sport and giving back to their community. The effort there is to keep them involved right the way through so that they get all those health benefits that come with being involved in sport. We know the previous government did not have any money budgeted for this, but we made sure that this investment was there. Again, I thank my cabinet colleagues for their support in delivering this project. I know it is one that we on this side of the house are very proud of.

This brought not only sport into the equation but dance as well. We want to see people being active, and we know that it may not be football, cricket, tennis or basketball that people are interested in. Can I say that, just looking at the figures the other day of people who have taken up dance, the numbers are going through the roof and that dance has been prominent across almost every electorate. It is great to see more people getting out there and being active and being involved in sport.

AFL still probably leads the way through the SANFL as far as people getting and using these vouchers are concerned, and we know a lot of that also comes from the growth in young girls and women playing football. It is really changing the face of how sport looks across South Australia, and we are very conscious of that. We have rolled out our grassroots football, cricket, and netball program as well, putting more than $24 million back into sport in South Australia.

We recently announced the first round. I think that it will equate to something like $15 million worth of projects to be delivered on the back of these grants. That is absolutely fantastic. I have been speaking with the communities that have worked hard and put in great applications. It is a fifty-fifty project so, in most cases, the local councils or the local clubs themselves have injected money into this. They have skin in the game. The SANFL and SACA have also put money into this project.

It is absolutely sensational to announce these projects, seeing how hard these communities have worked and knowing what it is going to deliver for them. We know that this is about lights, safety, security, playing fields and change rooms as well. We have driven the unisex, family-friendly change rooms very hard. That is what we want to see. The idea of building women's change rooms over there and men's change rooms over here, and the women use theirs when they play and the men use theirs when they play, just does not make any sense. We want to build unisex change rooms across the board.

If there is a weekend with four or five women's games going on, they can just flick between all the change rooms and everyone has access to the facilities. Next weekend, if the women are playing away and the guys are playing at home, again they can use those facilities. It is absolutely fantastic, and we are very bullish about that. It has been incredibly well received. Round 2 of that grassroots program will open very soon, and we want many people to get involved in that. The first round was oversubscribed, and we expect the second round to be oversubscribed as well because it has been really well received.

We are also excited to roll out our state sports infrastructure plan. This has dovetailed in with the feasibility around the Commonwealth Games. We are having a look at what sporting infrastructure we need for South Australia going forward for generations to come. We are consulting right around the state. It is happening in the regions first. I think that it is starting in the Riverland as early as next week. We are rolling it out right throughout South Australia. We want people to come along and talk about what it is their community needs and how they can come together and get sports and community groups working together.

We are also looking at what sport might look like into the future. It was a number of years ago that I played a little bit of sport, and I can tell you that clubs do not look like they did anymore. They are changing, and we want communities to talk to us about how they want their sporting infrastructure and sporting clubs to work. During the week, we saw a young woman wanting to play with the men down in the South-East. Of course, there were a few hiccups because of the registrations and the like, but it does pose the question, if we can take a positive out of a negative: what do we want to see in country sporting areas? Is there something we should be looking forward to down the track?

That is all part of the conversation we want to have with our state sports infrastructure plan and Game On as well. We will be out in the community consulting, and this has never been done before, because we want to get a very clear vision, listen to the community and work out what we want our sport to look like. What does sport and rec look like for South Australia into the future and for generations to come? This work has never been done. It has always been somewhat scattered and disparate, dare I say, with people looking at political opportunities, rather than at what is best for South Australia. That is not what we want to do.

We want to make sure that we deliver the right projects, and the Memorial Drive project is definitely one of those. The opportunity was there to get the WTA and ATP events and have the only covered facility for tennis in South Australia. To have that back so that young people and anyone else can get out and play all year round and develop their tennis skills—who knows? We hope that we can produce the next Lleyton Hewitt or Alicia Molik and have an Australian Open, Wimbledon, French Open or US Open champion from South Australia very soon.

Mr PATTERSON (Morphett) (11:38): I also rise to speak on the 20^th report of the Public Works Committee, which is about the Tennis SA Memorial Drive centre court development. I thank the Minister for Sport and Recreation for giving us his perspective. As the minister, he looked at the approval for money to be put towards a redevelopment at Memorial Drive. It was then referred to the Public Works Committee, as Tennis SA was looking for funding support from the South Australian government as well as some funding from Tennis Australia.

It proposed to transform its current facilities at Memorial Drive, which is obviously very picturesque and steeped in history. It is very close to Adelaide Oval, which has had such a great upgrade and really enlivened the Riverbank Precinct. Tennis SA is looking to transform Memorial Drive into an all-weather stadium facility and, importantly, to make it of an international standard.

The proposed centre court redevelopment will see the centre court area covered with an architectural roof structure that spans the existing court platform area and both the northern and southern grandstands that are currently there. The scope of these proposed works will also include the refurbishment of the existing tennis courts to bring them up to international standard. There is also new lighting to make these courts all-weather and able to be used at night-time for training. The redevelopment will also incorporate improved access between the centre court and some of the outside courts, which have previously been redeveloped as well.

The Public Works Committee was informed by Tennis SA that the proposed works are necessary because they want to position themselves to host the International Tennis Federation and, as the Minister for Sport mentioned, Women's Tennis Association events as soon as January 2020. We really want to put Memorial Drive back on the map and make sure that it has a pre-eminent position on the Australian tennis calendar, which of course leads into the Australian Open in Melbourne. We want to see exciting international-standard tennis played here in Adelaide to really inspire the next generation of South Australian tennis players and give them the opportunity to play against the world's best in front of their home crowd.

In terms of what was presented to the committee, we were advised that there are several sport and community outcomes that are expected through the completion of this project. These include:

a venue that will help develop, grow and widen the appeal of tennis, as well as associated community events;

improving efficiency, safety and amenity for the venue's existing players, patrons and spectators;

providing a world-class, all-weather, covered playing platform to enable International Tennis Federation and Women's Tennis Association events to be hosted here in Adelaide; and

year-round training facilities for the National Tennis Academy.

As a committee, we were informed that Adelaide is one of the only mainland capital cities that does not have an all-weather court. For our budding and aspiring tennis players to be able to progress, it really does help them to be able to train here in Adelaide rather than having to leave and go interstate and train in other states' all-weather facilities.

You can see from the age of many young tennis players that they start quite early in their teenage years. We saw Lleyton Hewitt, who was very successful as a young teenager, being able to compete on the world stage. In fact, he won his first tournament here at Memorial Drive back in 1997 or thereabouts. The opportunity of being able to stay here with your parents, live at home and train can only benefit those young players, rather than their having to go interstate and have the subsequent dislocation of family life, and potentially school life as well. I think that is a really important facet and certainly one that the committee rated highly when it considered this factor.

Another advantage of having this all-weather roof is that it will allow it to become a major community space for not only high-profile sporting events such as netball and basketball—again, the hardcourts here enable that—but also for concerts and community events. For a small-scale concert, an all-weather surface certainly provides an alternative location. For bigger concerts, there is the Entertainment Centre, with its capacity, and there is the Adelaide Oval.

This redevelopment provides a little sweet spot for some entertainers to come to Adelaide and perform in an all-weather environment. I think it is an attraction for those performers to come along and know that the crowds who have come to see them will not be deterred by potential weather considerations. It allows for those concerts not to be packed in until Mad March, which is during the prime weather season—it allows us to extend our events season.

The Minister for Tourism would certainly be very pleased with that, looking for fantastic events that bring people here. We know that once people come to experience South Australia they really get a lot out of it, but we need trigger points for people to come to South Australia and really enjoy what there is to offer, which is so much more than just the event itself.

Finally, it should be noted that Tennis SA were really mindful about retaining the heritage of Memorial Drive. We have seen that done very successfully at the Adelaide Oval, where the Western Stand was able to retain its heritage and retain the walls where past cricket greats had gone through and gone into the changing rooms. We still get to experience that history steeped in Adelaide Oval, and we want to be able to do that at Memorial Drive as well.

Talking of the history, it is worth pointing out that it was established in 1914, originally under the name of the South Australian Lawn Tennis Club, and it was not until 1938 that a permanent grandstand was erected—firstly, on the northern side of the courts, followed then by the southern grandstand roof, which was built in the late 1990s. This certainly will allow for a fantastic upgrade of this facility, which over the years has hosted many major events.

They were originally grass courts, and we had Davis Cup ties and even an Australian Open championship, so they are not just in the purview of Melbourne. In fact, up until 1967 Adelaide had hosted 14 Australian championships. While we are maybe not at the stage where we can take over from Melbourne, we are certainly looking to have some really high marquee players want to come to Adelaide to get warmed up and be ready to hit the Australian Open over in Melbourne at full strength. This is what this court upgrade will provide, and it should bring some really top-ranked tennis players to South Australia and Memorial Drive.

Some work has been done previously on the area around the tennis precinct. In 2018, the federal government provided $9.8 million to undertake stage 1 of the upgrade of Memorial Drive, which allowed for some surrounding courts to be built and also the re-establishment of 13 natural grass courts and four new synthetic grass courts so that it could become a tennis centre across different disciplines of tennis, including not only the hardcourts that we have now but also synthetic and clay.

It is worth pointing out that three new courts will be built there. The centre courts will be retained but reconfigured to comply with the current International Tennis Federation world cup standards and dimensions. It also includes an extension of the existing platform. The centre court area itself will be reconfigured to create three Plexicushion courts in the Australian Open colours, centred for maximum spectator viewing.

In the time remaining, it is worth talking about the roof structure. From a heritage point of view, it will be very complementary to Adelaide Oval. As we have seen with Adelaide Oval, it is really important that we retain its look and feel, and this will be no different; it will sit nicely alongside Adelaide Oval. There will be a new freestanding steel-framed, fabric-covered structure, which will be independent of the existing stands. The existing roofs of both the northern and southern stands will be demolished and in their place this new structure will not only cover the court platform area but also serve as a roof for both the northern and southern stands. Additionally, the new roof will extend to the east and west to provide shelter for temporary seating and/or the stage area.

I am very proud that this government has put approximately $10 million towards this fantastic $11 million upgrade. It will set up tennis here in South Australia for many years to come and I hope encourage many grassroots tennis players to aspire to play on this court in front of fantastic South Australian crowds who will cheer them home.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee) (11:48): I also rise to support the Public Works Committee's report to the parliament on the development at Memorial Drive, which, as we have heard from the contributions of other speakers, ostensibly is placing a roof structure over the court facilities at Memorial Drive, as well as including some small upgrades to the seating and other accommodation facilities for people who visit Memorial Drive.

My remarks are timely to follow on from the member for Morphett because he also draws the house's attention to—I think we can be genuine enough to admit—some welcome works at the Memorial Drive precinct that were announced, funded and now completed by the former federal member for Sturt, the Hon. Christopher Pyne, to replace the court facilities at Memorial Drive and also the clay courts on the other side of Montefiore Hill, as well as a new facility there.

Again, I will pay some credit to those sitting opposite, the Liberal government. They have been looking at ways to champion the role of tennis in South Australia to try to lift the opportunity for higher level events, if I can put it so generically, to be attracted to South Australia. It is their sincere hope that this investment at Memorial Drive will not only continue some of the work that both the member for Morphett and I have just mentioned about replacing the practice or, how can I put it, perhaps amateur courts at Memorial Drive but, with the centre court facilities, try to attract some higher events. I think there has also been an announcement from the government about attracting an event to Adelaide in the future that was formerly hosted by Sydney.

That is all very welcome because this has been somewhat of a conundrum for quite some years, how we can deal with what was starting to look a bit like a neglected area of Adelaide's Riverbank Precinct—this time, on the other side to the central business district—particularly after the former Labor government had delivered the redevelopment of Adelaide Oval. As it became clear that the redevelopment of Adelaide Oval was such an extraordinary success, particularly towards the end of the 2014 AFL season and into the 2015 calendar year, there was a lot of talk around Adelaide about what on earth could be done with Memorial Drive.

A proposal being championed in some corners was that perhaps the Adelaide Entertainment Centre at Hindmarsh should be razed and sold off for a housing development or apartments, particularly because the former Labor government had extended the tram service down to the Entertainment Centre and it would perhaps enhance the value of the land and increase the appetite from private housing developers to build apartments or high-density houses down there.

The Entertainment Centre could be moved back into the CBD, or a CBD location next to Adelaide Oval, and become a multipurpose stadium. Not only could there be the concerts, events and conferences currently held by the Adelaide Entertainment Centre at this new Memorial Drive location but there could also be tennis events, there could also be netball events and there could also be basketball events and other events from time to time attracted to South Australia. On the face of it, that seems a reasonable proposition.

I understand that some work was done by some private sector developers and some architects and that those plans were being shown to at least one side of politics—not necessarily the Labor side of politics—before the 2018 election around whether there could be this sort of redevelopment of Memorial Drive. I was not involved in any of those conversations, so I do admit that what I pass on is hearsay, but I was also informed that this plan was strongly supported by the Adelaide Oval Stadium Management Authority.

They thought, 'Who better to manage another part of the precinct that could be a revenue-generating opportunity than the Stadium Management Authority at Adelaide Oval?' All sorts of figures were bandied around about how much money would need to be spent on the Memorial Drive facility to ensure, once again, that the Stadium Management Authority could be gifted a state-of-the-art, bespoke piece of sporting infrastructure that they could monetise for the private interests of the South Australian National Football League and the South Australian Cricket Association and whether that could be extended to Memorial Drive. Indeed, I think a journalist at The Advertiser even managed to write a couple of articles on this, outlining that that figure was approximately $150 million.

If that sort of development can stack up on its own merits, if it has a strong enough business case that it does not require a huge investment from any level of government, if it makes commercial sense and, most importantly, if it is in the best interests of the sports and the events that might be attracted to that facility, that sort of proposition should be publicised and taken to the people of South Australia. In particular, it would be important to ensure that Tennis SA was not going to be shut out of what could be an exciting development for that organisation and for the facility it owns. The last thing we would want to see is the Stadium Management Authority taking over what is an asset that should be controlled by Tennis SA.

Unfortunately, we have not heard any of those plans. It seems that, in time, the attentions of the Stadium Management Authority moved on into a new hotel at Adelaide Oval, but I should not let any of that detract from the importance of this new roof over the Memorial Drive tennis courts. I am sure that it will be most welcome for those people who will be playing on those surfaces. It will be most welcome for those people who are looking at coming along and watching those tennis events.

I think that if the government is able to see that there is a broader application for this piece of infrastructure, that more and more tennis events can be attracted to it and that we give young South Australians the opportunity to play on such a court, then that would be terrific and strongly supported. I am happy to lend my support to the government's endeavours in this area, particularly because it has not led us down the path where we have a hostile takeover from the Stadium Management Authority of a facility managed by Tennis SA.

Mr COWDREY (Colton) (11:56): I rise to make some brief comments in regard to this report from the Public Works Committee in relation to the Tennis SA Memorial Drive centre court redevelopment and in some ways wish to pick up on the spirit in which the member for Lee started the first half of his speech before reaching into, by his own admission, unsubstantiated claims.

The opportunity that now sits before Tennis SA is immense. I am certainly on record—not so much in this place but outside—as being extremely supportive of the previous government's redevelopment of the state and national swimming facilities here in South Australia with the South Australian Aquatic and Leisure Centre. In some ways, I certainly see this as an opportunity for tennis to go down the same track as swimming by way of completely changing the culture in the state in regard to that particular sport. Through the new facility, there has certainly been a change in the way that swimming is approached in South Australia.

It is the first time that I can certainly remember in a long, long time that we have had national and international events held here in South Australia, and for young people to be able to see their role models in the flesh, the people they look up to within sport, is very, very important. This is certainly something they will now have the opportunity to do with respect to Tennis SA. Young tennis players will be able to come to national and international events to see these people in person and to play at that sort of facility I think is an incredible opportunity for our state into the future, so I certainly commend the Public Works Committee for undertaking this work and the project itself.

Mr CREGAN (Kavel) (11:58): I am certainly grateful to those members who have added their contribution to the debate in relation to receiving this report, most particularly the deputy presiding member of the Public Works Committee, whose insights I value and who appreciates the significance of this development and that it will be valued not only by the tennis community but also by all sports lovers in South Australia—Mr Speaker, yourself, I am sure, included.

I thank the minister, too, for his contribution to debate, the member for Lee, and also, of course, the member for Colton, whose enthusiasm for sports is well known as well as his lived experience of the significance, importance and value of sport in his own life and also to young South Australians throughout their life. It is a significant development. It is an exciting development. John Fitzgerald said that it was the most exciting opportunity of his lifetime. That is a very substantial endorsement and one that certainly we appreciate.

I also reflect briefly on remarks made by the minister in relation to the Sports Vouchers program. I was at a performance of Rockit Performing Arts at Mount Barker on the weekend and a number of members of the community mentioned to me that they value the Sports Vouchers program, available also for dance and other physical activity. It is an extremely good program of this government in view of the increased value of that program.

Motion carried.