COVID-19 Economic Response

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (15:12): My question is to the Premier. What is the long-term plan and what short-term measures are already in place to stimulate and encourage workers to return to the CBD and, more importantly, larger numbers of people to the wider city square mile to keep the small to medium food and beverage outlets and larger hospitality venues viable?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (15:12): I thank the member for Florey for her question. South Australia is doing well in terms of the management of the coronavirus pandemic. Overall, we know that we have many businesses which have significantly bounced back—in fact, some of them stronger than before—but in the CBD we know that it has been disproportionately hit compared with metropolitan Adelaide or regional South Australia, so it has been a major focus for us.

When we look at some of the national statistics in terms of activity levels in our CBD, we find ourselves amongst the highest activity levels in the country in terms of those CBD statistics, but we would really like to make sure that we can get back to the levels we were at pre COVID. That's not the case at this point in time.

One of the things we have done so far is to make it very clear that our state government public servants should be back at work. Obviously, we put in place our business continuity plan (BCP) during the peak of the impact of the coronavirus in South Australia, and that necessitated a large number of public servants working from home. That situation, if you like, diminished through the latter part of last year and by the middle of December or thereabouts we were fully back at work in the CBD.

That is not the case for some of the larger firms that are either nationally or internationally controlled. One of the problems that we have here, despite the fact that we can point to the situation of our relatively low level restrictions compared to other jurisdictions, is that many of these national and global companies say to us that it is difficult for them to develop one set of protocols for Adelaide and another set for the rest of the world and so we are, if you like, the victim of national and international settings with regard to some of the larger companies.

These are issues that have I have discussed with the chief executives of some of the larger businesses employing South Australians, including banks—the big four. I think that there is a movement to get as many people back to work as possible, but we are not at pre-pandemic levels at the moment.

One of the other things we have been doing, of course, is to really lean in on the opportunity to provide a differential Great State voucher incentive for CBD businesses. In metropolitan Adelaide, it has been $50 back per night in the CBD. It's $100 back per night, excluding the weekends. That has all been designed to drive people back into the CBD to be spending money. We know that if they are there for accommodation, they are also at the local pub or club or restaurant or cafe, so that has worked extraordinarily well. The first two rounds, sir, you would be aware, contributed around 62,000 additional bed nights in South Australia.

One of the other things that we have been doing is that we are now in our second round of working with the Adelaide City Council to provide incentives for businesses to develop some of their outdoor spaces: providing ways to activate laneways here in the CBD and generally supporting a range of initiatives jointly with the Adelaide City Council. I chair the Capital City Committee, which is a joint body that exists between the Adelaide City Council and the state government. We are always looking at ways that we can support those traders doing it tough during this particularly harsh period of the coronavirus.