South Australian Tourism Commission

The Hon. J.E. HANSON (14:33): Further supplementary: outside of visitor numbers and financials—obviously the amount that you are spending—what other KPIs were used in making this decision?

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment) (14:34): Mr President, I don't think the honourable member understands.

The PRESIDENT: Don't debate the question.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: It is all about visitor spend. It is all about dollars in South Australia; 41 per cent of the visitor expenditure in South Australia happens in regional South Australia. It's obvious you don't care about that. It is about regional South Australia. When the decisions are made at the departmental level and operational level to make some judgements, they have made judgements based on where we get the best bang for our buck.

Clearly, the decision has been made that we can get to our $8 billion target and keep tourists in regional South Australia. There is something that I think not everyone realises: in regional South Australia the only labour-intensive industry left of any magnitude is tourism and hospitality. Everything else—farming, mining, manufacturing—uses machinery and technology to make them more efficient, they have to. Hospitality is one of the few that is left that really underpins regional South Australia.

The KPIs that we look at are getting people here to tour South Australia; getting them to come and spend money and, if possible, stay a day longer. The RDA on Eyre Peninsula used this stat: that 40 per cent of the admissions to the Elliston Hospital were from tourists. So, not only do tourists underpin hospitality, pubs, cafes and hotels, they also underpin some of our other regional services. Of course, if you look in the Mid North, in the Flinders Ranges where Rawnsley Park is a good example: if they were running sheep, 1.5 staff; being involved in tourism, 21 staff. There are kids in the Hawker school; the Hawker township is more viable. They are the sort of KPIs—

The Hon. J.E. HANSON: Point of order, Mr President. We are now on the Hawker school; that's a long way from Mumbai; it's a long way from anywhere in India. I would just like him to come back to the question about what KPIs, other than visitor numbers and finance, were used in making the India decision.

The PRESIDENT: So your point of order is relevance, the Hon. Mr Hanson.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: They are the numbers—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. K.J. Maher interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! Leader of the Opposition, order!

The Hon. K.J. Maher: So Marty did it better. Just admit it.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Well, he was your very good friend and you are displaying very similar traits to him, I can tell.

The PRESIDENT: Minister, you have the call to respond to a question from the Hon. Mr Hanson and not to carry on a private conversation with the Leader of the Opposition.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: The two KPIs that I look at are visitor numbers and visitor expenditure—that is what we want. We want to get more people in here and we want more visitors. I don't know what the Hon. Mr Hanson wants—less visitors and less spend. That may be the place that he wants South Australia to be but we want more visitors and more expenditure, and we will be unashamedly pursuing that over the next 12 years.