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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-10-14 Daily Xml
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Memorial Drive Redevelopment

Ms LUETHEN (King) (14:58): My question is to the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport. Can the minister update the house on how a world-class tennis venue—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for King, please be seated. I will not permit this discourse in relation to the member for King. The member for King will be heard in absolute silence.

Ms LUETHEN: My question is to the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport. Can the minister update the house on how a world-class tennis venue is being delivered and how local jobs are being created through the Marshall Liberal government's Memorial Drive upgrade?

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD (Gibson—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing) (14:59): I thank the member for her question and note her passion and advocacy for investing in sport and delivering jobs at the same time. I want to add to that her advocacy for her own community and the great work she has done delivering for the Golden Grove Tennis Club as well, it must be noted—an outstanding precinct. Again, I congratulate her on that.

We have also served up Memorial Drive and the precinct redevelopment there. Anyone who has been across the bridge and over to the Adelaide Oval and seen the development at Memorial Drive would be suitably impressed. Stage 1, the $10 million roof, was a great outcome. That investment helped us get the Adelaide International and led to us having some of the world's biggest names in tennis here last year: Serena Williams, Novak Djokovic and Rafa Nadal playing here in Adelaide because of that investment we made, and we are very proud of that.

The Premier and I dropped by just a couple of weeks ago to see how the momentum was going for stage 2 of this development. That is coming along amazingly well, and we were both very impressed with what we saw. A $44 million investment has been injected into stage 2 as part of this massive transformation to make this a state-of-the-art arena.

Let me detail what stage 2 actually includes. The northern and eastern facilities, linked by the concourse level, will enhance patron amenities and food and beverage facilities. The northern facility will include a media and sports technology centre with broadcast facilities, media lounge and space for high-performance sports research and development. The eastern facility will incorporate high-performance training facilities, premium multipurpose event and function spaces and the addition of rigging points for the roof and feature lighting. This is a great expansion and it will be of great benefit to the people of South Australia. Not only that, but it will drive jobs and vibrancy within our city.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The exchange between the leader and the Premier will cease.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: It will also inspire the next iteration of tennis superstars. Talking about jobs, the development will create 85 full-time jobs and, wait for it, 21 new apprentices. The Minister for Innovation and Skills is excited about that. It will employ 350 people through a variety of roles throughout the life of this project. So it's an exciting project coming out of the ground here in Adelaide—of course, not only for sport; it will be used for concerts and other events as well, so the facility will be beneficial to everyone.

We are the government that is building what matters and we talk about that all the time and this is another example of that. We are the government that is creating jobs and that is key to what we are doing. I know that the member for King is very passionate about that. In fact, we are the government that has delivered sports projects for the community of South Australia right across the board. Let's touch on what the Marshall Liberal government has delivered for sporting communities in our great state.

We have mentioned the projects, but sports vouchers can't go unnoticed. When we came to government, we upped the sports vouchers to $100, so we were putting money back in the pockets of South Australian families, with $100 for primary school age children who are actually going out and getting involved in sport. We have expanded that out to years 8 and 9 as well, and we have added dance and swimming to that program because we know how important it is to get young people active, and we are helping families with the cost of living in this process.

In fact, in the member for King's electorate more than 1,600 vouchers have been claimed this year, saving families more than $160,000, which is absolutely outstanding. This government is very proud to be delivering for the sports communities in South Australia. We are very proud of the investment of more than $50 million into that Memorial Drive precinct so that we can have international events, so that we can keep developing our tennis stars of the future, and that is why we are building what matters for the people of South Australia—to keep prospering South Australia and taking our state forward.

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