South Australian Sporting Events

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (15:36): In the first few months of this year, sports lovers from all around Australia and from around the world have come, and will continue to come, to South Australia to take in a veritable carnival of sport. The AFL's Gather Round and the groundbreaking LIV Golf are proven success stories for this state, all through the initiative of a Labor government that has no problem seeing the big picture.

Of course, there have been a few people questioning the money being spent on sport, supposedly at the expense of art, culture and development. Under Labor governments the Adelaide Festival has continued to grow and maintain its place as one of the world's great art festivals, the Fringe has become the second largest festival of its type in the world and, launched under a Labor government more than 30 years ago, WOMAD has become a major musical event not just in Australia but a major event around the world. Thousands of people are also enjoying Writers Week as I speak at this very moment. These events coexist to create a magnet, drawing anyone to Australia who is interested in the performing arts and a theatre experience.

At what cost has this month-long extravaganza of creative arts come? None: they pay for themselves and pump more than a hundred million dollars into the state's economy every year. The Adelaide 500 brings thousands of visitors and millions of dollars into the state economy every year, but the Liberal Party axed it for reasons that we still do not understand.

We put money into running these events, but they return so much more than the relatively small investment made by the government. Of course, we brought the 500 back once elected, and look at it now: it gives Adelaide yet another event where the city thrives and the economy booms. The latest figures available show that the race gave the South Australian economy a $61.6 million boost in 2023.

As for infrastructure and development, more has been done to bring Adelaide into the 21^st century under this and former Labor governments than can be articulated in this speech. From expressways—creating them and fixing them—to the increasingly impressive cityscape, Labor has done Adelaide proud. Nobody has missed out because of these sporting spectaculars, so anyone who thinks Gather Round and LIV Golf come at a cost is simply looking for an argument where there is none.

Let us be realistic and just look at the facts: these two sporting events have been a huge success for South Australia. Gather Round was supposed to be a one-year deal before it went on rotation around Australia but, after the huge success of the inaugural round in 2023, even those interstate people with their own parochial interests acknowledged how good it was and that it should stay here. Melbourne football people supported Adelaide, that is exactly how well it went.

This April an AFL match will be held in the Barossa Valley for the first time. You do not need to be an economist to understand how much this does for local tourism. Interstaters and people from all over South Australia will book overnight accommodation at Lyndoch, Tanunda, Nuriootpa and Angaston, plus other places, and make a weekend of it. The cafes will be full, winery and cellar doors inundated, and the restaurants, like the hotels and motels, will be booked out. For those interstaters who have never been to the Barossa, it will be a promotion that money cannot buy.

The Premier's hard work in locking in Gather Round when it was expected to move on has been a windfall for the state, so has negotiating LIV Golf for Adelaide. This football carnival comes on the heels of attracting thousands of people over three days to see the world's best golfers teeing off at the Grange golf links. Gather Round attracted 267,000 spectators in 2024. LIV Golf attracted 90,000 last year and it appears even higher numbers this year. That is more than 350,000 people, many from interstate and overseas.

To put that into perspective, the corresponding AFL round attendance in 2022, the year before Gather Round started, attracted 23,000 people to see Port Adelaide host Melbourne at Adelaide Oval. In Gather Round 2024, four matches were played at Adelaide Oval over four consecutive days and the lowest crowd was more than 43,000.

It does not matter which way you look at it, getting these two massive sporting events to Adelaide has been a win-win for the state; keeping them has been perhaps an even greater achievement. The Premier rolled his sleeves up and convinced the respective organisers of the benefits of having them stay in South Australia. There is not much more to say. I hope you enjoyed the golf and see you at the footy.