Mortal Kombat

Mr COWDREY (Colton) (15:04): My question is to the Minister for Innovation and Skills. Can the minister update the house on how the production of the Mortal Kombat film is helping to grow South Australia's economy?

The Hon. D.G. PISONI (Unley—Minister for Innovation and Skills) (15:04): Yes, I can, and it is one big figure: $70 million of foreign currency coming into South Australia. And I tell you that I was very, very pleased to visit the site of where they are building the props yesterday. I had a tour—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: —and met a number of South Australians who are working on very important roles in that project. Let's look at the numbers so far. Out of the 428 people who are engaged on the production, 330 of those are local South Australians. On that point, when the producer took me round to show me—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: —the pre-production work that has been done, the setting of the scenes, he actually pointed out to me the scene boards that are designed by scene designers. They are obviously not interested over there.

The SPEAKER: Members on my left!

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: The biggest ever production in South Australia's history.

The Hon. S.C. Mullighan interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Lee can leave for 20 minutes under 137A.

The honourable member for Lee having withdrawn from the chamber:

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: Of course, what Bennett Walsh was very pleased to share with me was that for that work of designing those scene sets, those two-dimensional scene sets, they usually bring people in from all over the world to do that sort of work, but in this case all four of them come from Adelaide. There is no doubt that we have the talent here in South Australia for this type of work.

I also met Claire. Claire is a cabinet-maker. She did the cabinet-making apprenticeship, very similar to the one that I did, in bespoke furniture—and how handy that has been, working from plans and making some very quirky designs using her skills. Back into the industry after doing her apprenticeship, of course, she was made aware of the Mortal Kombat work through someone else, another local who got a job through Mortal Kombat, so she was thrilled to bits about being involved.

Rachael, a sculpture artist, was working on the plasterwork building rocks. She does exhibitions and she is obviously hungry to have substance on her CV. I said to her, 'What's going to go on your CV after you have finished this work?' and she said, 'That I worked for Warner Brothers.' That's what is going on her CV. She was thrilled to bits with the opportunity. There was Alex, first time working on film, and he was—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: —connected to Mortal Kombat through contacts in the Fringe Festival.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: So, as you can see, the creative industries community—

The SPEAKER: Member for Playford!

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: —are coming on board, getting lots of experience, lots of work, in this field. He generally does fine art sculpturing, but in this role he was building columns and walls and really enjoying the work that he was doing. Will, who is a science graduate, 12 years at university, has taken on the job of being a construction and stage hand—absolutely loves it—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: —and the opportunities that he is enjoying from working on Mortal Kombat. And, of course, Ausma. Ausma has her own painting and decorating business and she was staining up timber boards with an aged effect. She was introduced for the first time, even though she had been in that business for many, many years, to shellac. It was a great conversation.