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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-07-02 Daily Xml
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Regional Tourism

The Hon. I. PNEVMATIKOS (15:01): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment a question regarding regional tourism.

The Hon. K.J. Maher interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Leader of the Opposition, I'm about to ask the council for leave. I would like to do so without your, I was going to say pithy but I'm going to leave it at just commentary.

Leave granted.

The Hon. I. PNEVMATIKOS: In response to estimates questions from last year, the minister has advised that regional tourism organisation funding and the regional consumer cooperative marketing fund were due to expire on 30 June 2020 and 30 June 2019 respectively. The budget agency statements or measures contain no mention of either program, both of which are very important for regional tourism. My question to the minister is: will the minister confirm if the government has committed to renewing funding for both regional tourism organisation funding and also regional consumer cooperative marketing?

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment) (15:03): I thank the honourable member for her question. She is correct: those two matters are not being continued with. We have a focus on investing in marketing and in the budget we invested some $43 million. In the face of the $517 million writedown in GST, the cabinet and the government have committed to maintaining an ongoing investment in tourism. We think that is important. It is a clear indication to the tourism sector that we are committed to marketing our great state to the rest of the world. Clearly, driving more visitors here is the number one priority of this government. It is one of the sectors identified in the Joyce review in relation to growing the South Australian economy.

We are supporting regional events. Something thrown up in the regional visitor strategy work and also in the consultation undertaken by the Tourism Commission was that for regional events, albeit somewhat smaller in nature when it comes to funding—there is a whole range of them—it's important to have some support.

But the number one issue that was focused upon with all of the consultation, the message that came through in the 19 minister meetings that I attended last year after the election, through all of the work done in the regional visitor strategy prior to the election and the great work done by Helen Edwards and the team of regional chairs, and with the consultation around the 2020-30 plan, the number one issue that was raised, the number one support that the sector would like from the government is for marketing.

We have made a commitment, as I said, in the face of the $517 million this year and the over $2 billion across the forward estimates that across the forward estimates this government, the Marshall Liberal government, is committed to at the very least maintaining the same level of marketing activity that we did last year so that the industry can be certain that we are there with them every step of the way. When the financial circumstances improve, I am sure that there will be an opportunity to add additional funding to that marketing campaign.

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