My father was less than impressed with Andy Warhol’s art but as a furniture manufacturer competing against international businesses with much lower input costs he knew his business lived or died on its ability to continually innovate, to improve, to change.
I took that lesson to heart and into government years later when I became Premier of South Australia in 2018. My Cabinet had a very clear understanding that South Australia needed change and needed it fast if we were going to avoid becoming a quaint relic of a bygone economic era.
At that time the Digital Revolution had, at best, a spotty presence in an economy still grappling with the decline of manufacturing and a loss of faith in state government policy.
We did basic things – lower taxes, lower input costs, reduced red tape – and we set about making Adelaide a destination city for technological innovators.
A Chief Entrepreneur was appointed to assist startups get through that perilous new born phase when so many great ideas wither on the vine. We canned plans for luxury housing on the seven hectare site of the old city hospital and began its conversion into Australia’s coolest hub of innovation, entrepreneurship, research, education and culture.
We struck the Adelaide City Deal with the Federal Government and the City of Adelaide to help fully realise the sites enormous potential. We provided meticulously restored heritage buildings for businesses to set up in at excellent rates. I opened my door to businesses large and small, regularly personally escorting potential investors around what we renamed Lot Fourteen.
Lot Fourteen is now home to the Australian Space Agency, the Australian Space Discovery Centre and Mission Control, SmartSat CRC, the Australian Institute of Machine Learning, the Australian Cyber Collaboration Centre, the Centre for Augmented Reasoning, the Defence and Space Landing Pad, MIT big data Living Lab, the University of Adelaide research institute, The Circle – First Nations Entrepreneurial Hub and, of course, the Office of the Chief Entrepreneur.
But this is just the beginning. The cutting edge Entrepreneur and Innovation Centre is currently under construction and Tarrkarri, a magnificent living cultural centre for the 60,000 thousand years of this country’s First Nations cultures, will follow. This city is now offering enormous opportunities to innovative individuals, businesses and organisations.
Paradoxically Adelaide’s exciting embrace of the future is enhanced by the legacy of its past. Quite simply Adelaide has a life-style to die for. The Economist’s Global Liveability Index named Adelaide as the world’s third most liveable city in 2021.
The square mile of the CBD is characterised by generous tree-lined streets peppered with Victorian and Edwardian architecture. It’s completely ringed by deep parklands that house Adelaide Oval, one of the world’s great sporting venues. The city’s vibrant East End is a mere five minutes’ walk from Lot Fourteen, housing historic pubs, small bars and great restaurants.
Every March the Adelaide Festival brings the best of the world’s theatre, music and visual arts to town, whilst at the same time the Adelaide Fringe floods the city with outrageous performances and WOMADelaide delivers four days of world music in the parklands.
Adelaide’s Mediterranean climate is complemented by gleaming white sand beaches and pristine waters of Gulf St Vincent just a 20 minute drive from the CDB. Whilst getting to a surf beach down the coast will only take you 45 minutes from the heart of town.
South Australia is one of the world’s great wine producing regions with the world famous Barossa Valley and Coonawarra delivering peerless new world wines. The Clare Valley, McLaren Vale and Adelaide Hills are also studded with world class wineries.
This State also has something else – a history of intellectual achievement that has shaped the world in the most profound ways. Two examples. The physicist Sir Mark Oliphant who had an instrumental role in the development of the atomic bomb and microwave radar and Sir Howard Florey the pharmacologist who was awarded a Nobel Prize for his role in the development of penicillin. Both attended the University of Adelaide, a stone’s throw from Lot Fourteen, at the same time.
My point is straightforward, if you are looking for a sympathetic business environment in which to develop, nurture and deliver an innovative idea, Adelaide is ready to welcome you with open arms. You will get to live in a city that is cultured and friendly.
