Great State Voucher Scheme

The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON (Ramsay) (14:32): My question is to the Premier. Why were tour operators, smaller accommodation providers and other critical parts of the visitor economy excluded from participating in the Great State Voucher scheme?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:32): I would like to thank the member for her question regarding the Great State Voucher program, which was an enormously successful program. When we are out talking to operators in the CBD, they are very grateful to this government for backing them and increasing their occupancy. We spoke to operator after operator after operator who was telling us that they are putting more people on, and that was exactly and precisely what it was designed to do.

The question that the member asks is: why wasn't it extended to other sectors of the tourism sector across South Australia? A decision was made to start with accommodation. Often, accommodation is a driver for those other add-on services. This was the recommendation that was given and it was one that we were very pleased to support. This year is going to be a very different year for the SATC and for tourism more broadly.

We will have to remain very nimble and flexible because what we know is that we are going to have a very significantly diminished international visitation to South Australia, so therefore we need to make sure that we are not spending money advertising into areas of the world where we simply can't be attracting visitors, so we've got to pivot and we've got to pivot quickly.

Obviously, we have been extraordinarily pleased with the response that we had from the people of South Australia with regard to intrastate travel. The Welcome Back campaign was particularly very successful, and we are very grateful for the support that we had from people of South Australia, who are probably normally heading interstate and overseas throughout the winter months here in Adelaide. What has happened during that is they have spent time in Adelaide, they have absolutely loved what they have seen and they have made bookings for next year.

I'm not sure that we haven't seen a permanent change in the spending of South Australians over the winter period. I have spoken to so many people, especially in regional South Australia, who have told us that they have had their best months ever. It started out with those ubiquitous Zoom meetings all day, every day, right throughout April, May and June, and some very long faces, very concerned people, very anxious people, but the smiles started to appear; they basically started to appear from the middle of the year onwards.

We were the first state in Australia to open up for intrastate travel and the first for caravanning and camping. We know that the Minister for Environment and Water has very significantly invested into nature-based tourism, and a range of initiatives is sending messages to the market that we want to lean into this. Then, of course, we came out from the tourism portfolio and said that we wanted to have a tourism industry development fund, $20 million to leverage up—we hope tens and tens of millions of dollars of private sector investment in a range of programs to increase amenity across regional South Australia because we don't want to just have a little lift this year: we want to have a sustained increased visitation to our wonderful regions in South Australia.

The SPEAKER: Before I call the member for Ramsay, I call to order the Minister for Police, Emergency Services and Correctional Services, the Deputy Premier and the member for Cheltenham.

I thank the house for the opportunity to consider the point of order raised by the member for Lee and to deal with it thoroughly in the interest of consistency. I uphold the point of order and refer, in this context, to the ruling of the Speaker on 6 February 2013, which members might have had in mind and I think might have been referred earlier—it's a different expression—and I ask the Premier to withdraw the words that he used.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: I'm very happy to withdraw those words, sir.

The SPEAKER: Thank you, Premier. The member for Ramsay.