Trade, Tourism and Investment Ministers Meeting

The Hon. T.J. STEPHENS (15:10): My question is to the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment. Can the minister update the council on the recent trade and investment ministers meeting held in Adelaide last week and the collaborative nature of the push for a national brand?

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment) (15:10): I thank the honourable member for his ongoing interest in promoting South Australia and growing our economy. As he indicated last Wednesday, South Australia played host to a trade, investment and tourism ministers meeting. The trade and investment was in the morning, and the tourism ministers' meeting was in the afternoon. It was the first time that this group had come together since I have been a minister, and it was an honour to host them here in South Australia and also an honour to have the federal minister, the Hon. Steven Ciobo, in Adelaide with all the other ministers.

Of particular interest was the discussion around a national brand. The federal government is leading the charge on this. At the moment, as members would know, we have a brand. I think it is called Australia Unlimited, but clearly the federal government and a number of national influential stakeholders and people do not believe that brand has the cut-through or the support that it needs. Minister Ciobo has announced, as I think members would be aware, a new task force charged with creating a new national brand for our nation—for tourism, for exports, for investment, for everything that Australia stands for.

The council is chaired by Andrew 'Twiggy' Forrest and also includes distinguished leaders such as Alan Joyce, the chief executive of Qantas, Dr Stephanie Fahey, the head of Austrade, and luckily, I think, and importantly for us, South Australia's own Mr Glenn Cooper. The thought behind this is a single national brand, and I think the discussion was very much around it being a master brand, similar to what we have seen in other countries, like the New Zealand '100% Pure'. Great Britain has a 'GREAT' campaign around its products and they focus on the word 'great', and of course we all know Canada's maple leaf as their symbol and their logo.

Something that we have in this state is our logo, which I am wearing today. I know a lot of members do wear it. It is something that the current Premier and I, at the time it was released, gave our bipartisan support to. We thought that was a good initiative by the previous government. There was always debate around, 'Is it exactly what we want?' but it does describe where South Australia is on the national map. You could spend another $1 million and come up with another creative agency to do it, but really at the end of the day it is a very good logo, but it doesn't have a story behind that brand at a local level.

Similarly, when I was at this SIAL exhibition or trade show in Shanghai several years ago, I was disturbed when I saw that we really didn't have a national presence. We had Food SA and Catherine Sayer and her team in the Australian space, with Queensland, but Victoria was somewhere else in another pavilion and New South Wales was in another pavilion somewhere else, and we didn't come together as a nation. If you went to some other pavilions, such as the United States, it was the US everywhere, with every individual state having their own presence. France was the same, and even little countries like Malta, Morocco and Turkey all had a national brand.

I think there is some real appetite for that. All the ministers around the table saw it as a very positive step, and we support it. It will be a high-level brand, where states will still have the capacity to express ourselves and promote ourselves nationally and internationally, but under the banner of this, if you like, master brand.

It will happen relatively quickly. I know that the federal government and the team need to move quickly, so there will be a number of forums and community engagements over the next couple of months. I think the actual time line is for it to be launched and announced in January or February next year. It is an important initiative that I was pleased to look at from a state perspective. All the states were on board that this was something we needed to do.

Just quickly, from a tourism perspective, I raised the issues that were important here. I was delighted that when I talked about our plan to hook up across to Victoria the Adelaide to Melbourne bike trail, the Victorian Labor minister, Mr Eren, chimed in and said, 'This is a great idea, mate, and we are happy to be involved.'

Obviously, they haven't got to the point of wanting to fund it but, certainly, I was very much encouraged that there was some support from the Labor government in Victoria. That is great news for us because there is a Victorian election later in the year and whatever the result might be, I suspect we might have some support.

It was also interesting to note that the commonwealth government will be releasing its India Economic Strategy very soon. I think that is important for South Australia because we do have an Indian strategy but we need to make sure that we plug in with the federal government's new economic strategy. It is also interesting to note that the Indonesian free trade agreement is imminent. That will be very good for South Australia. Our closest neighbours geographically will give us an opportunity to access that market.

It was also pleasing to note that when you go to these things you are warmly welcomed. Sometimes when you go to these things as the new kid on the block and as the new minister, you wonder how you are going to be accepted. I was pleased. I got two different receptions. When I walked into the trade ministers' meeting, comparing me to the previous trade minister, I think I was delighted with the comparison that I was given.

However, it was interesting, when I went to the tourism ministers' meeting, I sort of got a bit of negative feedback because I clearly hadn't provided the level of food, wine and hospitality that the Hon. Leon Bignell had done prior. I was told that the next time we host, I actually have to lift my game to make sure that I match the sort of hospitality that was provided by the previous minister.