AHA|SA as a Source of Truth

The following are extracts from Premier Peter Malinauskas’ speech at the AHA|SA’s Annual General Meeting - Hilton Adelaide.

Premier of South Australia, Peter Malinauskas.

Throughout the entirety of my time in positions of elected responsibility, I have enjoyed a really good working relationship with the AHA, including in my former life with Pedro (Peter Hurley) at the helm.

We haven't always agreed but we've always engaged constructively.

And that will be the way my government operates throughout the entirety of our term in office.

That relationship ensures that we don't get things wrong in the first instance.

It also ensures that if we're going to buy a fight, we know where you're coming at us from.

But we don't anticipate any of that because that productive working relationship doesn’t let you do that.

If there's any doubt in the room, Ian is incredibly proactive in getting in our ear. There isn't one of our ministers that he doesn't know or have the mobile number of, and he does use it.

… we have found the AHA to be a very faithful, earnest source of advice in a speedy fashion, which is something you don't always get in government as well.

And that's why having a relationship with industry is fundamental to the way that we operate.

I believe that in government, you can't just rely on your departments or the bureaucracy.

You have to have multiple sources of truth and in respect of all things hospitality, the AHA is an important source of truth.

COVID MANAGEMENT

In order to achieve that end, what I did effectively within 48 hours of being sworn in, was establish a cabinet committee to run the COVID response.

Now, without going into the technicality of that, what that essentially means is there are decisions that the Cabinet can make in the form of a subcommittee, the subcommittee of Cabinet meetings, it has the full powers of Cabinet.

We can make decisions in Cabinet readily and quickly, sometimes not as quickly as I'd like.

But we can nonetheless make them readily and quickly, which then arms the government including the police commissioner, with more options to keep things moving.

And what you've seen upon the establishing of that committee was a public enunciation of my public policy objective in respect to COVID Management, which was to achieve national consistency.

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At the heart of that effort has been the motivation of thinking about yourselves and your ability to keep people at work, to try and allow people to enjoy the dignity of work, provide a family of incomes, and of course, your businesses to operate more normally.

It remains a precarious situation. I don't want anyone to be under the misapprehension. There will be challenges. There may be other variants, there will be other waves in terms of case numbers.

But we are going to be leading in trying to achieve a better sense of normality, as much as we can.

In that first week of formal office, I made it clear … that by the 30th of June, I want the emergency management declaration over.

We are on track to realize that ambition.

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Now, what that means in terms of... your industry is that people who are in charge are those that have been elected. And you can hold us to account accordingly, which Ian and David amongst others are well accomplished at, let me assure you.

…we have found the AHA to be a very faithful, earnest source of advice...

HOTELS’ SOCIAL IMPORTANCE

26,000 people is a number that we would love to see grow. (This is the number of hotel employees in SA). They are more than just jobs, they are livelihoods and a sense of community.

The reason why this industry is able to attract not just a lot of attention from my government, but also having Jing here today as well from the other side of politics, is because there is something culturally powerful about the work that you engage with. It's part of how we interact with each other as human beings.

If I think about the things that worry about in 10, 20, 30 years time, one of them is young kids putting a lot of time on screens. I don't know if it's all healthy.

But when they're at one of your venues, they're not on a screen.

They're talking to each other. They're laughing with each other. They're sharing one another's triumphs and tragedies and everything in between.

But human engagement occurs in a healthy fashion. Not every engagement with 10 pints is necessary! (Laughs) But you know where I'm coming from.

It is part of who we are as a community, as a state, as a nation.

So to that end, I applaud your efforts.

LIVE MUSIC GRANTS

The live music industry and your industry are synonymous, and they are co-dependent upon one another.

In the coming weeks you'll be seeing a rolling out of our election commitment in respect to a multimillion-dollar package around live music, including the provision of 5000 individual $400 grants for live music events in your venues.

They'll be vouchers that are (similar to) the accommodation style voucher.

So we're doing that on a larger scale.

With your industry, there'll be vouchers that you as venues can apply for, your venues can apply for, get $400 from the government, and then host a live music act. Similarly, artists can apply for that for those as well.

There are 5,000 at $400 a pop, 100 of $5,000 a pop, and then 25 at $25,000 a pop.

And then we have a separate pool of funds - $1 million worth of $5,000 grants for venue upgrades.

So if throughout the course of the pandemic, you haven't been able to invest in your infrastructure or your capital around hosting live music, lighting system, sound systems, what have you, you can get access to a $5,000 grant from the government.

We're going through the process of getting that up online in the coming weeks. We've bought for the handing down of the state budget on the second of June, that will actively facilitate that exercise.

And again, that's all about putting people back into work that have been hurt most throughout the course of the pandemic.

RETURN OF THE ADELAIDE 500

It has to be a major success in the CBD, but also in the suburbs.

It was the one event that every single year didn't just fill up hotel rooms, it filled them up at the right rate, which is fundamentally important to cashflow, and setting your business up for the year ahead.

We've deliberately moved that to December to get it out of Mad March, so it stands alone as an event.

It will be the last race of the year.

There'll be other events around it, including hosting the Barry Sheene Medal, which is their equivalent of the Brownlow.

But the real opportunity around the car race, for growth, I actually think is in the Adelaide Motorsport Festival, which had its funding cut well before COVID.

We're reinstating that funding, in fact there maybe even a boost there.

Because the Adelaide Motorsport Festival, for those of you that aren’t familiar with it, was on an extraordinary growth trajectory of getting people who are into classic cars and car ownership, to come to our state.

And the good thing about those consumers, is they tend to be people with a high amount of disposable income.

If you can get around in the classic car, you can dine at one of your venues and get into it.

So that's something that we're leaning in on, as much as other major events.