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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-09-07 Daily Xml
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Superloop Adelaide 500 Infrastructure

The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON (Ramsay) (15:34): I rise today to talk about the revelations of the Budget and Finance Committee yesterday. Most disturbing is that a fire sale is to take place next week, an auction for the infrastructure items of the Adelaide 500. Let us remind ourselves that we are 193 days away from the state election, and there is a very clear difference between Labor, which will bring back the Adelaide 500, and Steven Marshall, who has axed it.

Why are you selling the infrastructure now? You made this decision, and thousands upon thousands of South Australians have knocked down my door, knocked down the opposition's door, saying, 'No. We love this event, bring it back.' Let us remind ourselves that in 2019 there was $45.9 million in economic impact involving more than 450 full-time equivalent workers, not to mention nearly 15,000 accommodation nights. So next week you can bid for a pit building, a shade structure, track infrastructure and operational infrastructure for the Adelaide 500.

How much will this fire sale make? How much do they expect to make? Those questions were not answered. What this is is the Premier sabotaging the opportunity for the Adelaide 500. He is saying, 'Even though we know people love this event, even though we know we are going to an election, we are going to sell it anyway.' We are committed to bringing back the Adelaide 500, but this decision is vandalism and we called it out, and we said it true.

Another thing we could not find out about is how much it cost to cancel Supercars in 2021. We asked the question: did we pay more to cancel Supercars than it would have cost to hold it? Even then the Tourism Commission would not give us their understanding, and that concerns me. How much did we pay Supercars for cancelling the event? Own up to it and tell South Australians.

What was very disappointing was the lack of preparation for the Budget and Finance Committee. I have never been at a committee where so many things were taken on notice. 'Is the name of the Adelaide 500 still registered, and who owns the name?' 'I don't know. We have to take it on notice.' 'How much did it actually cost for the annual storage of this infrastructure, the infrastructure we have to sell off?' 'I don't know. We will take that on notice.'

When we asked what was the decision process to flog off the Adelaide 500 merchandise, we heard that some of it has gone to an archery club and we heard that the overpasses have been part of sponsorship, but there were no answers about this process. 'How did you make this decision about who was going to get this merchandise?' It was unbelievable that these questions could not be answered in a parliamentary committee session.

Maybe we would expect that with more recent events that have been announced, questions asked about them could be answered. When talking about Bloom—which is now quite a wilted festival or a wilted collective—we asked, 'How much did it cost to launch it?' 'Don't know. We will take that on notice.' 'How much was the cost of the exclusive lunch for the 45 influencers?' 'Don't know. We will take it on notice.' 'How much were the promotion and website costs?' 'Don't know.' We do know the events advisory committee, the think tank for events to replace the Adelaide 500, met six times, but they would not tell us how many of their ideas were rejected, what ideas had been put forward by this Events Advisory Group. There were no details of that again.

Finally, the $14 million supposed to be ring-fenced for new events is for both new and contributing to events that are going. The reality is that this is sabotage and that this is vandalism. Stop the sell-off.

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