Adelaide 500

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (15:33): Often, a newly elected government has difficult decisions to make, difficult laws to introduce and is forced to take pathways that are not necessarily going to attract widespread approval. The reintroduction of the Adelaide 500 motor race is not one of those instances. The new state Labor government has been given a welcome gift by those on the other side of the house, allowing us to make an easy decision that makes sense, that almost every one favours and that will simply work.

In short, we have been gifted a no-brainer. It is an interesting saying, that, 'no-brainer'. It seems to have been the level of thought the former government used in scrapping, at the first sign of difficulty, an event that had worked for years and put us on the map. Yes, COVID caused a lot of issues and, yes, the former government, at least in the early stages, did a pretty fair job keeping the state running. We are on the record commending them for the things that they did right. But for reasons only the former Marshall government could explain, they closed down something that created wealth and, perhaps more importantly, gave South Australians something to look forward to.

The Adelaide 500 was going to be difficult to maintain while COVID was rampant—we understand that. How about pausing the event for a year or two until everything got back to normal or at least to the new normal? No, the former Liberal government, as it had a habit of doing in previous incarnations, put it in the too-hard basket and they scrapped it altogether.

Fortunately, South Australia has the Labor Party available to make the decisions that require foresight and imagination and does not baulk at the tough decisions. We could very easily have said no to the South Australian road improvements that were 25 years overdue, we could have kept the Royal Adelaide Hospital as an outdated medical facility trapped in a 19^th century building that made people sick just by visiting.

We could have banned AFL football from the city precinct and denied businesses the opportunity to flourish. We could have simply not worked overtime to encourage the growth and development of the restaurant and dining scene in the city's East End and, more recently, the western side. No, we did not say no to any of those initiatives.

That is the stuff the other side has always done as it counts its pennies, scared to spend money to make money, and goes to frightening lengths to make sure nothing ever changes. It is curious then that the Marshall government chose the Adelaide 500 to be its one significant change. It finally makes a decision to change things and the best it can do is change it back to a time when we did not need to concern ourselves with the obstacles of dealing with a thriving city centre.

No, Labor will not make those sorts of changes. By reintroducing the Adelaide 500 for at least five years, Labor has given the local economy plenty of impetus. We have given tourism operators, restaurants, hotels, cafes and retail outlets a guaranteed time around which they can plan. For some very odd reason, the former government could not see the economic, cultural and uplifting benefits of having this major event in December, followed by all the excitement of the festive season leading into what has become affectionately known as Mad March.

These numbers were somehow lost on the former state government, but Liberal governments do not have a good record at adding up the numbers and making the right decisions based on simple mathematics. Any government that can sell a TAB for less than one year's profit and builds a one-way motorway for almost the same cost as a two-way road cannot list economic foresight as one of its strong suits. Some people panicked when COVID hit. The former government did okay for a while but then dropped the ball on the Adelaide 500 motor race but now thankfully Labor has everything back on track.