MARSHALL DISBANDS COUNCIL

SOUTH Australian Premier Steven Marshall has made the call to axe the Events Advisory Group (EAG), a committee set up in Nov last year to help drive more event wins to the state.

The group was chaired by Business SA’s Nikki Govan (pictured) and included a slew of high-profile members including actor Hugh Sheridan, Art Gallery of SA Director Rhana Devenport and Lord Mayor of Adelaide Sandy Verschoor, with the body’s primary objective to fill the vacuum left by the Adelaide 500 which was cancelled by the South Australian Tourism Commission in Oct 2020.

Despite the abrupt closure of the advisory group, the SA Government was glowing in its assessment of the EAG’s brief achievements, with a spokesperson stating SA would “continue to benefit from the outcomes of the EAG as it works through the remaining ideas and proposals”.

However, South Australia’s Opposition Leader Peter Malinauskas lashed the Marshall Government over the axing, claiming it shows the state has no plan in place to attract new events capable of replacing the now-defunct Adelaide 500.

“It beggars belief that Steven Marshall made a decision to axe the Adelaide 500 without a plan to replace it, but now it’s even more startling that he’s canned the plan to replace the dumped event,” he said this week, adding that the recently launched Bloom Festival brand was an inadequate replacement.

Bloom was unveiled by South Australia earlier this month, a pastiche of events including a Barossa food and wine festival, concerts at the Adelaide Oval, nature-based festivals, as well as some revamped motorsport events including an expanded Adelaide Rally - a concept put forward by the EAG.

Marshall thanked the advisory body this week for their contributions to the planning of new ideas for events following the government’s call to end the Adelaide 500, stating they had done “excellent work and put forward great ideas for the South Australian Tourism Commission”.

“There are many other things that were suggested that we’re going to continue to follow up,” Marshall added.