James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the weekend it was my pleasure to attend a milestone announcement with Minister Paul Fletcher and the South Australian Premier at the South Australian Film Corporation studios in Glenside in my electorate in Adelaide. Last year the making of the largest Hollywood blockbuster movie ever in South Australia, Mortal Kombat, occurred at the film corporation. It will be released in the coming months, after some COVID delays. It is the largest film ever made in South Australia, and one that we hope will be very successful at the box office. Recent statistics on the South Australian film sector indicate that 15 per cent of the national production spend occurs in South Australia, which, proportionally, is more than double the relative size of our economy in Australia. That represents a 35 per cent growth in film, screen and television production activity in the state of South Australia.

On Saturday, we were able to announce that a joint production between the streaming service Stan and BBC One, the premiere television network in the United Kingdom, called The Tourist will be commissioned. Again, it will happen through the South Australian Film Corporation, with filming both in remote South Australia around the Flinders Ranges and at the Film Corporation studio in my electorate. It will be the largest television production ever to occur in the state of South Australia, so it will be another milestone for that sector and for us in South Australia. This is going to involve a significant investment of $25 million in the economy, more than half of that in the state of South Australia. There'll be job opportunities for 270 cast and crew and more than 850 extras in the production across its filming, and 120 of those jobs will be in my home state of South Australia.

This is all thanks to the recent injection of more than $400 million into the Location Incentive fund that Minister Fletcher was able to announce in the lead-up to the budget. This is making an enormous impact. It is the difference between getting some productions off the ground and not. These location incentives are vital in attracting the big, significant studios to make investments in the sector in this country. I'm very hopeful that there'll be a lot more of this that will flow. As I mentioned, the growth in South Australia has been enormous—35 per cent year on year in the recent statistics—and this new production of The Tourist is another great show of confidence in the local industry's capability. I see it moving from a piecemeal approach where we get ad hoc productions being commissioned on and off to having a constant, steady stream of production in South Australia, and the industry is responding to the incentives that are being put in place at both the Commonwealth and the state level. It's an exciting outlook for the South Australian Film Corp, and I'm proud to have them in my electorate of Sturt.