Riverbank Arena

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee) (14:36): My question is to the Premier. Has the Premier sought agreements from any other organisers of major conferences for his new stadium and, if so, what are they?

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Leader! The Premier has the call.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:36): Can I tell you that the Adelaide Venue Management do an excellent job speaking to a range of different organisations about their conferences, their conventions and their exhibition needs here in South Australia. Obviously, we have excellent facilities at the moment. The problem with the excellent facilities we have at the moment is that they are too small. Of course, with the announcement and with the money committed in the budget over the forward estimates and beyond the forward estimates, we now have something new to sell.

The international borders are creating a problem at the moment, as most people would be aware, with regard to bringing people in from overseas. There will be no immediate resumption of large-scale international conferences in Adelaide, although I would like to also acknowledge the great work of the team led by Anthony Kirchner and the chair, Bill Spurr, at Adelaide Venue Management, who have done an excellent job continuing with conferences and using video technology to make sure that we can keep as many conferences in Adelaide as possible.

It's a very important driver for investment into South Australia. We know that a lot of the developments for some of the hospitality venues in South Australia are on the back of the projected improvement in overall visitation to South Australia. Recently, we have been judged as the most livable city in Australia. We were also judged as the third most livable city in the world, and I think this is another way we can sell our city and our state to international visitors.

As I said, those international borders are not going to open up immediately, but I must say that I was very proud today with the great milestone for South Australia. We have now sailed past 500,000 COVID-19 vaccinations in this state. That is something that every South Australian should be very proud of. I know that Professor Nicola Spurrier said repeatedly that she wanted to have the best testing rate in the entire nation, and I think we showed that—in fact, I think we showed the world what could be done with testing. We invented the drive-through testing regime here in South Australia.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Point of order, sir: the question was about the Premier's proposed new stadium, not vaccination rates. This is clearly debate.

The SPEAKER: I uphold the point of order. It was a rather extensive—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, members on my right! As I listened to the Premier's contribution, it was a rather extensive segue into the present circumstances that are pertaining to the subject matter of the question. I direct the Premier to the specific question. The Premier has the call.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: What I am saying is that there are a number of issues we must address before we get people booking conferences in going forward, and one of those issues is to make sure we have an adequate facility, and I think we have dealt with that now once and for all in our budget. Of course, those opposite seek to unwind that and drive people out of South Australia in terms of making those big conference bookings.

I am not quite sure why they do that. They must be getting the same information that we are getting, and that is that these conferences require larger and larger facilities. That's why we have seen a very significant increase in the capacity in Sydney at the Darling Harbour complex and a very significant increase in the facilities in Brisbane.

South Australia led the country and, in fact, I would have thought those opposite would have been very proud of the legacy of John Bannon with the ASER Project, developing that conference capability in South Australia, with the first area. It was something that every South Australian I think ultimately was very proud of. As I said, governments of different political persuasions over a long period of time have added to that in response to the changed circumstances in terms of the market and demand, and we have responded. But we are now too small.

The biggest issue is not that we don't have enough capacity in South Australia, it's just that it's dislocated. We have some in Hindmarsh, we have some in Wayville and we have some across the other side of the river. What we need, though, to win these larger conferences to South Australia, these larger conventions, is for it to be in the same area co-located; that is what we propose. We know those opposite oppose this, just like they opposed the Adelaide Oval Hotel, like they oppose the interconnector in South Australia, like they oppose the Rostrevor school. They love opposing. But what do they stand for? It's less than nine months to the next election—no policy.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The time for answering the question has expired.