Tour Down Under

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (14:49): My question is to the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment. Can the Minister for Tourism tell the council how the Santos Women's Tour Down Under continues to build the global profile of women's cycling from the South Australian stage?

The PRESIDENT: Minister, wait for the call. You now have the call. The Hon. Mr Ridgway.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment) (14:49): Thank you, Mr President. It's just early new year enthusiasm to get to my feet. I'd like to thank the honourable member for his question and his ongoing interest in cycling, especially women's cycling. Of course, as we know, the Santos Women's Tour Down Under took place from 10 to 13 January this year. Fifteen teams competed, made up of 10 UCI women's teams, two national teams and three domestic Australian teams. A total of 90 riders from 23 countries, including 33 Australians, competed.

The women's peloton assembled arguably the strongest field of international female riders in the event's four-year history. We saw some of the best homegrown international female riders in action. Some of the key riders to grace our roads during the race were: Australian Amanda Spratt from the Mitchelton-Scott team, the two-time reigning Santos Women's Tour Down Under champion; Italian Elisa Longo-Borghini, from team Trek Segafredo, the 2016 Olympic Games bronze medallist; Finnish rider, Lotta Lepisto, from team Trek Segafredo, the seven-time Finnish national champion and two-time UCI World Championships bronze medallist; Australian Chloe Hosking, from the Ale Cipollini team, multiple Santos Women's Tour Down Under stage winner and 2018 Cadel Evans women's race winner; and South African Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio, from team CCC, the fourth-ranked rider in the 2018 UCI Women's World Tour.

It's the fourth edition of the UCI 2.1 women's race across four exhilarating days. Women's riders raced some 376.6 kilometres across the Ziptrak Stage 1, Novatech Stage 2, Subaru Stage 3 and southaustralia.com Stage 4, which, as members would know, coincided with the Tour Down Under Classic in the city.

This year was a year of several firsts. It was the first time that the Santos Women's Tour Down Under started in the town centre of Hahndorf. It was the first time that Birdwood and Nairne had featured as a start or finish location in either the men's or women's races. It was a first-time start in Nuriootpa for the women's race. Stirling featured as a finish location for the first time in the women's race, utilising a part of the famous Stirling circuit.

The Women's Tour Down Under overall general classification was won by Australian Amanda Spratt from the Mitchelton-Scott team for the third consecutive year and it was fantastic to see her honoured at the Legends Night Dinner. I think it is important to note the absolute excitement building around women's cycling. As I said earlier, there were more participants, more spectators. Even though some days were quite hot, there were significant numbers of spectators on the sides of the road. In fact, this year the Santos Festival of Cycling featured over 30 associated events, including four street parties in the city.

The revamped City of Adelaide Tour Village with enhanced programming was a key initiative for the 2019 event. I think it is important also to remember the regional towns being activated. I was at the start at Nairne on the Saturday morning and the town was chock-a-block full. Every little cafe and shop had a queue a mile long to get a coffee or a donut or an egg and bacon sandwich. A lot of those people stayed around, even after the race had started, and they hung around and put valuable dollars into those regional communities.

The Seven Network was a new broadcast sponsor and broadcast over 33½ hours of 2019 TDU programming across both the men's and women's races, which was a slight increase on the previous year's broadcast. While we are still awaiting the final broadcast figures and media reports, as to the opening stage of the men's event and the Classic in the city, Mark Beretta, the sports commentator who was here with Channel Seven, informed me that 300,000 people streamed that race live on their mobile devices, either on mobile phones or iPads. You can see that it's an event that continues to gain interest globally.

Stage 4 of the women's race was broadcast live in conjunction with the Down Under Classic, representing the first time that a women's race and the first time in years that the Classic had been seen live on free-to-air television. News Limited has pledged a commitment to work with the TDU to further increase the profile of the Santos Women's Tour Down Under through telling the editorial story with a commitment to daily race coverage and pre-event promotion. It has also committed to deliver the women's peloton photographic project for the third consecutive year. While the final figures are still being confirmed, an estimated 800,000 spectators, based on the official police figures, watched both the men's and women's 2019 Tour Down Under.

We are in a different space with the digital age. Website traffic grew by 14.8 per cent year on year and page views by 8.7 per cent. The increase in social media audience went up from 190,000 to 215,000 year on year, 26½ thousand more people engaged with the event over and above the 2018 figures, and Instagram followers—and as we know, Mr President, this is as much about tourism as it is cycling—grew by over 10,000 throughout the whole TDU campaign.

It is another vote of confidence for the event that Santos renewed its naming rights sponsorship of the event for a further three years, lasting until the 2022 event. That is important, that Santos, the team led by Kevin Gallagher, was delighted to sponsor the event again and over a longer period of time. They see the value of it.

It is a world-class event, the biggest cycling event outside of Europe. Of course, I always remind members that it was a Liberal government initiative under then premier Olsen and former tourism minister Joan Hall that started this event, and it continues to grow.

The PRESIDENT: Minister, you have been going for well over four minutes. You have broken your own rules from your own leader. I am going to give you some leeway because it is the first day back. Is there much more?

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Can I finish with one sentence?

The PRESIDENT: Yes.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Given this is the greatest cycling event outside Europe, I think it deserves more than four minutes, and I do apologise if I have gone slightly over four minutes. It is one of the greatest cycling events in the world and members opposite should sit and listen in silence.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Ridgway, don't apologise to me, apologise to other members who can't get questions without notice, in particular crossbenchers and the opposition. The Hon. Mr Darley.