Trade, Tourism and Investment Ministers Meeting

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (15:00): I direct a supplementary question to the minister with regard to his comments about a cross-border relationship on a bicycle trail between Adelaide and Melbourne. What financial commitment has the minister secured in this current budget to move that project forward?

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment) (15:00): As we made an election commitment, our first commitment was to—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: —I said a moment ago, if the former minister had been listening—look at the gaps. A good gap, as the former minister for water would know—

The Hon. K.J. Maher interjecting:

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: The largest gap, Mr President, is probably the one between the ears of the opposition leader. The former minister knows—

The Hon. K.J. Maher: Just say, 'Not a cent.' That's the truth—say, 'Not a cent.'

The PRESIDENT: Order! Allow the minister to respond.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: We are looking at what assessment has been done at the moment, and we have a budget for it, but to look at the gaps. The former minister for water would know that one of our commitments is to have the trail go across the barrages. He would know that we would have to go across some private properties, so we have to do an assessment as to how—

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: On a point of order, Mr President: the supplementary had nothing to do with the route that the trail will take; it had all to do with whether there was a single cent committed to—

The PRESIDENT: Leader of the Opposition, I'm not upholding it because the minister is actually referring to certain parts of the trail, which I suspect will be particularly expensive or time consuming to sort out. Minister, continue with your answer.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: We have a preliminary budget of, I think, $400,000 to look at where the gaps are. I said that the former minister would know that there are some gaps from SA Water's viewpoint. He would know that that would have sent a shiver down the spine of SA Water when we said that we want to ride across the barrages—there is private property. I think there is about 16 kilometres of unsealed road on the eastern side of the barrages: they are the sorts of things on which we are spending this amount of money.

The Victorian election is on 24 November and both sides of politics there—Visit Victoria has already started a little bit of work on it and is very keen on it, as is the current minister. We suspect we will have a fairly solid picture of what are the gaps, and then an estimation of the actual costs.

I refer people to the New Zealand experience, where they did the trail from the top of the North Island to the bottom of the South Island. If I am wrong I will bring back a correction, but I think they invested about $60 million or $70 million New Zealand dollars in it over a number of years; it created 1,200 regional jobs, put $40 million into New Zealand's regional economy, and there are about 1.3 million people a year who ride on parts of that.

Mr Eagleson, who was the former chief of staff to the New Zealand Prime Minister, said that it is one of the best things they spent money on, that it got one of the best returns. So there is a small budget to identify the gaps. Then we sit down and say, 'What's it going to cost to fill the gaps and how do we fund it?' I suspect there will be a three-way funding thing between the federal government, the state government and the various local governments along the route.