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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-11-30 Daily Xml
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VALO Adelaide 500

Mrs PEARCE (King) (14:22): My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier advise the house about the impact of the previous sale of infrastructure on the staging of this year's and future years' Adelaide 500 events and about any views on these impacts?

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:22): I would like to thank the member for King for her question. I have good news for the member for King: the Adelaide 500 is back. It is coming back bigger and better than ever before. I am very pleased to be able to report to the member for King and all members within this place that this weekend we are set to see well in excess of 200,000 people. In fact, our fingers are crossed that we might crack the quarter of a million mark in the number of people who come to Victoria Park to see one of the most spectacular events in motorsport, not just nationally but globally.

The whole city is excited. It doesn't matter if you are a motorsport fan or otherwise, there is a buzz about our beautiful city at the moment about the prospect of the return of motorsport to the streets of Adelaide. If you want to book a restaurant on Saturday night in Adelaide, good luck, because all the reports we are hearing is that the joint is full—and that is something that we on this side of the house are incredibly excited about indeed.

We are very proud of the fact that we are doing everything we can to support the resurgence of our tourism sector. All in this place know all too well the extraordinary sacrifice made by people in the hospitality industry: small business owners and individual workers giving up their capital, their labour, their incomes and sacrificing themselves in the name of everybody else's safety. We have long held the view on this side of the house that those people deserve a reward and the Adelaide 500 is very much part of our strategy to restimulate that part of our economy that did pay a very dear price and made a big sacrifice during the course of COVID indeed.

I did, however, receive a piece of correspondence from the member for Bragg dated 19 October. To summarise the contents for the member for Bragg, it failed to mention any support of the Adelaide 500. The letter did raise concerns regarding the prescribed works period in Victoria Park—

Mr Batty interjecting:

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: The member for Bragg interjects about the time that it is taking to address this. The member for Bragg is looking for an explanation as to why it is taking longer to set up the program and maybe a bit longer to pack it down. I say to the member for Bragg: the reason why it is going to take a little bit longer this time around is because the people sitting around you, in the immediate vicinity, sabotaged the whole scheme—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Point of order, sir.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: —they sabotaged the whole project.

The SPEAKER: Premier, there's a point of order.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! There's a point of order. The member for Taylor knows better.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for West Torrens!

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Standing order 98: the Premier is well out of bounds; this is debate.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, member for Mawson! It was a reasonably broad question; nevertheless, it doesn't in any case permit debate. I bring the Premier back to the substance of the question and certainly the response.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: There have been concerns raised by the member for Bragg and other people who have made the observation that the set-up and pack-down time is a little bit longer than has been the case in years gone by and that's because there was a deliberate act of sabotage of the Adelaide 500: selling off infrastructure and the like.

I would like to inform the member for Bragg and the South Australian public that on this side of the house we are investing in the Adelaide 500 to make it the success it should be, which is not a policy position that I understand those opposite have and certainly not in the past.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Point of order, sir.

The SPEAKER: There is a point of order in the dying seconds of the answer.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Standing order 98 again, sir.

The SPEAKER: Very well. Of course, standing order 98 requires that an answer respond to the substance of the question. I draw the Premier back to the substance of the question—15 seconds.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: In respect of the Adelaide 500's future, we have invested in it. That will enable an increasingly expedited process in terms of the set-up and pack-down of the Adelaide 500, something the member for Adelaide has been advocating for and we are looking forward to delivering in due course. Rest assured, for those people who are more recently arrived in the parliament and wondering why this is the case, I invite them to consider their own policy within the Liberal Party.

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