Matters of Interest

Superloop Adelaide 500

The Hon. J.E. HANSON (15:27): To put a different spin on a famous quote, I want to kick off today by making the observation that politics does not build character: it reveals it. Decisions like the axing of the Adelaide 500 should be something that, if you make that decision, you take responsibility for. It should not be something you run away from.

We know that the member for Dunstan, Mr Marshall, told South Australia he did not make the decision to axe the Adelaide 500 race. In a cowardly move, he put the cancelling of the popular event 100 per cent at the feet of someone else. He said that the tourism department was to blame.

The fact is that the Premier's office was in discussions about cancelling the race months before it was axed. Freedom of information requests on documents, which the Marshall Liberal government tried to keep secret, reveal that the Premier was intimately involved in the axing of the Adelaide 500.

The documents, which have now been released after months of the Liberals fighting to keep them secret, show that the Premier sought and received high-level briefings about the cancelling of the race in June 2020—months before it was cancelled in October that year. The documents show that the Premier personally pursued those briefings so he could see all the scenarios, risks and cost implications of cancelling the event. They showed that the Premier's office were discussing options to cease the Adelaide 500 in June 2020 and were warned then that such a move could cost the government millions.

It is damning stuff that reveals that Premier Steven Marshall has absolute cowardice when it comes to leading on this issue, but the documents go even further. They reveal that the Premier's office was told by the SATC—the people the Premier actually blamed for cancelling the event—that the overall benefit of the event was $94 million and that cancelling the event would have significant implications from a public pride perspective and there would be a loss of significant economic and marketing return to the state as a result of cancelling it.

So the very people the Premier blamed for cancelling the event actually told the Premier what we all knew at the time and what we know now: the event supported hundreds of jobs, it made millions of dollars and attracted tens of thousands of visitors to our state. Despite all that, he cancelled it anyway and he blamed that decision on someone else. What a sham! What kind of leadership is that? It is the kind of leadership that clearly inspires ministers like the member for Black, Mr Speirs, who as recently as this week was caught out in a serious leadership fail all of his own.

The Minister for Environment—the environment, no less—was caught out encouraging a group of donors at a Liberal Party event to lobby the Premier to promote him to a different portfolio, and why? He said that the problem with his portfolio (the environment portfolio) was, 'The crazy lefty activists, they do wear you down after a while.' He said, 'I think there's a lot of noise and crap around climate change because all the ills of the world are put in the climate change basket by the left of politics.'

This is the environment minister, the environment minister for a state that was subject to the worst bushfires on record and cost us two lives, the environment minister who cancelled 450 gigalitres of environmental flows of water down our river and was found by a royal commission to have acted contrary to the interests of our state. In short, he is an environment minister railing against the environment. It is the same minister who addressed a church telling them that if Christians joined political parties, it would make a difference on bills around social policies.

Politics does not build character, it reveals it. A vote for Minister Speirs in Black is a vote for these kinds of hard right-wing views. It is the kind of vote we have seen on the march in the Southern and Adelaide Hills branches of the Liberal Party. It is not just in the south, where that church was located. A vote for the Liberals in the Hills is a vote for the hard and far right. They have taken over the branches in the Hills and their views are extreme. It is the kind of extremism that belongs in the politics of decades past but seems to be given a safe haven in the Marshall Liberal government.

Mr Marshall could show leadership and do what his minister, Mr Speirs, requests. He should remove him from the environment portfolio that the minister hates so much. More than this, he should act on the growing extremism in his own party and tell the truth when he chooses to make a decision, like when he axed the Adelaide 500.