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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-11-26 Daily Xml
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Beach Volleyball World Championships

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson) (15:39): I rise today to talk about the Beach Volleyball World Championships that were hosted in Adelaide for 10 days up until last weekend, and to congratulate all involved. It was a huge success, and something that came out of my time chairing the major events committee in South Australia. A trip that I did to Europe a few years ago netted the Beach Volleyball World Championships; 10 games of international hockey, five for the Kookaburras against India, five with the Hockeyroos against India; and the British and Irish Lions—first time since 1888 that they have come to South Australia—and we managed to have more hotel rooms sold than ever before in South Australia's history.

The thing about that trip was that there was a bit of conjecture from an ABC journalist who tried to call it a junket. He said, 'Why is this person, this politician going to somewhere as beautiful as Switzerland to try to get these events and everything else?' Switzerland is where the International Olympic Committee is, and that is why you go there—to talk to the governing bodies.

We went to a Beach Volleyball World Championship in Gstaad. The whole trip I reckon cost $14,000, and I explained that to the journalist at the time, and he still did a story saying it was a rort. I have to say that in my time as tourism, food, wine and agriculture minister, I travelled all the time because you cannot sell a secret, you have to get on planes and go to market and put Adelaide out there on the map.

I was delighted to be there on the weekend to see the rest of the world and hear people speaking French, Italian and Portuguese, with people from Brazil and Asia and from across Europe, from North America and South America. It was just terrific to have so many people in our city, and the athlete satisfaction and the visitor satisfaction was through the roof. To be able to stay at the Intercontinental and then walk across the bridge to Memorial Drive where the Beach Volleyball World Championships were held was a great experience for them, a great experience for the fans.

The thing that worries me a little bit about tourism in South Australia is that we do have, under the South Australian Tourism Commission, a major events division. They are the people who recommended to the Liberal government to get rid of the car race—which they did and which was a disaster for South Australia—and I want to thank the Premier for bringing that back. It was an election pledge leading into the 2022 election, and of course to Brad Jones and his four teams in this week's event, the grand final, and to all of the other competitors out there, I want to wish you all the best.

They also did not want to go after what is now called Gather Round. I think they were a bit reluctant on LIV Golf as well, and the Premier deserves every bit of credit for getting Gather Round and LIV Golf. He worked the phones and he worked the rooms to get them here and they have been huge successes. The South Australian Tourism Commission did not want to have the Matildas here. I had to convince people that we should get them—the game sold out, 54,000 seats in under an hour. I think that was a winner.

I think the British and Irish Lions sold more rooms than ever before. That was a winner. The SATC did not want it, it was not on their radar, and then they pushed back when we were trying to put a bid document together. In fact, the person from the SATC when I went to London to have the meeting in Gloucester could not even be bothered getting on the train to come out there for the meeting and did it by Teams. You have to be in the room, you have to turn up, you have to be in people's faces and you have to hustle, and you have to sell South Australia.

I am not sure what is going on in the South Australian Tourism Commission but I know they argued against the Beach Volleyball World Championships as well. If we are to succeed in this state, if we are going to grow our economy, the best money we can have in our economy is the money out of the purses, the wallets and the pockets of people who live interstate and overseas. I will never stop promoting South Australia. I will never stop doing whatever I can with my connections around the world to make sure that we get the best in the world competing in the best place in the world—which is Adelaide.

I want to thank Craig Carracher, the Chair of Volleyball Australia, who always believed in this event and went really hard after this event. He sponsored the event when the federal government refused to come to the table. I am very disappointed in Anika Wells, the federal sports minister. I wanted to have a meeting with her—too busy. I went to Canberra and had a meeting with some junior staffers and she walked out and walked straight past me. I reckon that is not good enough. MPs turn up, they get on planes and come to Canberra to have a meeting. Do not snub us, and get in behind. We have an Olympics in this country in 2032, and if we do not support these Olympic sports we are going to have a very bad road to Brisbane.

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