Host Welcome | Adelaide Airport

Transcript

Joe Zsakacs:Thank you so much and good morning to all of you. Welcome to Adelaide on this dreary— I was going to start— look, I'll let you in on a little secret. Today I'm going to tell you about how good Adelaide is, but it's also a really good day to be in this room in Adelaide. So can I begin by thanking Cliffy for his very kind Welcome to Country and also acknowledge myself that, that we are on Kaurna land. This is a really important part of Kaurna land for our traditional owners, being on the banks of the Karawirra Pari, which is the River Torrens behind me. And the view today, notwithstanding the pretty bleak weather outside, is, is truly special. For, you know, people like myself, As a minister in the government and in a suite of portfolios which talk about the future, it is one of the great privileges to talk about the future of our state and often our country, but doing so with the privilege of doing it on the land of the oldest continually living culture in the world. It's a great privilege and I'm extraordinarily proud to do it here today. Can I acknowledge all of you? Welcome to Adelaide, particularly amongst others. Andrew Barr, the Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory, very good friend of mine, and he gets to oversee the 2nd best airport in the country. To CAPA, thank you for your trust in South Australia. And you mentioned in the opening the Team South Australia. Can I also thank Brenton Cox, the from Adelaide Airport and his entire team. And in a moment, I'll speak a little bit about that Team South Australia approach. But to all the team who have been involved in pulling this together, thank you and congratulations. You know, we join together in Adelaide today in South Australia at a really good time. It's a pretty exciting time for South Australia's future, both at the crossroads of enormous opportunity before us and the absolute dedication to capitalise on that opportunity in our future. At a macroeconomic settings level, there has never been a more prosperous time to be in South Australia. Ratings agencies, independent organisations like the ANZ, the Business Council of Australia, just to name a few, all of whom independently have come to the consensus conclusion that South Australia is not only the best place to do business in our country, but continues to show a sustained economic growth story that is outperforming and outstripping the rest of the nation. And it's not lost on me or on our government about the really complex economic settings before us, but how important it is for us as a state to continue to grow on that economic opportunity. We are seeing state final demand grow at a rate that is not seen in the rest of the nation, but also most importantly, the rate of, the rate of private sector capital investment in our state is outperforming the rest of the nation to a factor of 4 or 5. That should all be good news to all of you. I know it is good news to you and music to your ears. But that economic piece in South Australia is the underpinning factor about why we are the place to invest, that we are the place to co-invest, and that we are the place for you to make those really complex and difficult decisions in a complex global aviation environment, knowing that you can trust the foreseeable future before you. For all of you that work in this really difficult setting, thank you. from aviation to logistics, um, to, uh, trade and economic, and economic growth, but also through tourism. Um, you know, there has been a really complex set of headwinds facing all of you, um, not just in the last 6 months, not just in the last 12 months, but it feels as though we continue to limp through COVID. COVID was the most unsettling and disruptive time in the aviation industry that you have ever faced. As a former Minister for Trade and Investment Attraction, I have met with you, I've met with your global leaders, and recognised the challenge of just regrowing a workforce within aviation, counting on the likes of our good friends at Airbus and Boeing to deliver on your orders. You know, all of these things that continue to keep rebuilding to maximise your opportunities are then again disrupted by a global fuel crisis, a war that is not of any of our making, but one that is profoundly impacting all of us. And those incredibly challenging global economic factors and global security factors are in no doubt and profoundly impacting the way that your industry can make those decisions that are so important for your growth moving forward. As a state, we take those decisions that you have to face and you have to make really seriously. And as a government, we see the value of that team South Australia approach. And can I say that you will find no other jurisdiction in this country where government and airport is more connected than here. We cannot, we cannot achieve what we want to as a state, and we cannot support your ambitions to achieve either without that interconnectedness. And what you will find in South Australia is a open, and accessible government. You will know who we are. You will speak to us. We will speak to you. And we will craft and ensure that our policies and economic agenda is crafted in a way that is influenced by your needs. That has been an approach that I've taken as a minister now overseeing our big biggest infrastructure projects and the most ambitious infrastructure agenda in our state's history. But that Team South Australia approach has seen a significant growth and opportunity before us in respect to densification and new entrants into our aviation market. For the raft of airlines, whether it be supporting our routes here for decades or the newest of entrants, in just the last couple of weeks. Thank you for trusting and supporting what is being done here in South Australia, whether it be the first entrance of China Eastern that is connecting Adelaide to the 3rd largest city in the world and China's most important city for the first time, or whether it's the likes of Singapore Airlines who are routes and seeing the most flying and the most pax into Adelaide in our history. All of this matters. Whether it's a large airline or a small regional carrier, we will ensure that that works for us and works for you. We're really proud of our offering, whether it be the amazing simple pleasures that are on offer here in our beautiful state. 17 wine regions, the great wine capitals of the world. The fact that you can jump off one of your planes, travel 45 minutes to the Barossa, and see the most extraordinary wines from the most extraordinary, extraordinary regions from the most extraordinary people. All of this matters to ensure that our South Australians can utilise you to see the world, and the world can be supported by you to see the great offerings that we have here in South Australia. But we also, as a government, recognise that the greatest connection economically for us to the world is that air bridge. Global exports from South Australia have never been higher, and they have never been higher because we've never had more air freight leaving South Australia, whether it be lobsters in the belly, whether it be fresh meat, whether it be the fruit and veg that the world needs, and our region needs through ASEAN to support their own food security. All of that is facilitated by the aviation industry. Those macroeconomic settings also mean that we can continue as a state to attract the global showcases. Many of you, I hope, will have heard that we have attracted and, and won the MotoGP. As the minister responsible for the particularly significant infrastructure undertaking that that will mean, I am both excited but a little nervous. But it will be the first race on the world's first street circuit back in Adelaide. for, or in Adelaide for the first time. Whether it's major events at this wonderful facility or whether it's those smaller cultural offerings like WOMAD, the Adelaide Fringe, or the Adelaide Festival, we are proud of who we are as a state. We walk tall, we walk strong, and we know we can back that up with the ambition to ensure that we capitalise on the opportunities before us. In closing, again, can I thank all of you, to thank the Adelaide Airport team, thank CAPA. For those of you that are from Australia, I am always happy to welcome you to my home. For those of you that are a bit further abroad, we are a place where I hope you always feel welcome. In a pretty complicated world, in a world where some of the political discourse can be less than kind. I hope and trust that in South Australia, in this great city of ours, you always feel welcome. You feel welcome to support your growth, and you feel welcome to continue the great work that you do in your sectors and industry. Thank you very much.

Brenton Cox:Thank you very much, Joe. Minister Sokatch, I mean, you can see with a minister like that, it makes our job very easy, uh, as an airport, that's for sure. And what people don't realise actually of, of our minister is that in a former life he was a director of one of our shareholders. So I, I absolutely had to be nice to him then, um, and now I'm very proud to be able to be nice to him now because he does a fantastic job for us. Um, thank you also, Cliffy, for the Welcome to Country and the brown snake joke. Always goes Down very well. And, um, so, you know, I've been coming to CAPA for a long time, and I've seen some faces in here too where you've also been coming to CAPA for, for some time. And, and in fact, if you haven't met the marvellous Jonathan Chung, he and I first met at CAPA over a decade ago. We might not have so many aviation connections as we do today if it weren't for, uh, went for CAPA. So as I was sort of thinking about the welcome that I provide you all this morning, forgive me, I got a little bit sentimental. I was thinking, you know, how do I validate— you know, you could be anywhere in the world, and you look out the window and think, I could be under a dune somewhere, but you could be anywhere in the world, you're in this room. So I thought I'd validate your decision-making process. And, you know, the Minister spoke about connections. And, you know, we talk about connections a lot in aviation, right, don't we? It's, it's relatively obvious why. You know, our networks connect cities, um, our whole organizations and industries connect communities, um, with the world. But, you know, of course that's why we do what we do. But what we don't talk about is our, is our internal connections, uh, right? Like some of those little internal connections are somewhat unspoken, and for good reason. I mean, to the external world, we are somewhat one ecosystem. Whether you're an airline, airport, whether a government tourism body, trade body, the multiple, just critical service providers that are in our industry, we are only able to project that one ecosystem approach because of those internal connections. And many of those are relatively obvious, although intangible, so, you know, contracts and systems, but there are those connections that are, that are far more intangible that I want to talk about today. So, you know, Adelaide Airport, and the Minister spoke to this too, you know, we believe in the power of relationships, and of course the critical importance of collaboration. It's something we talk about a lot within our organisation, we talk a lot about with our partners, and that's because we believe in the one ecosystem approach to our industry. And we believe that, but I know that you share that belief, and I know that because you're here. This is what CAPA is all about, and this is why you choose to come to CAPA. So in the next few days, you'll all get to sort of renew some relationships and, and compare notes and best practice. I imagine a superficial assessment of what we're all doing and what we're going about is that we're engaging in networking. A closer analysis, though, would identify that we are in fact building those connections that is the invisible glue that holds our industry together, and even amongst competitors. And it's so good to look around the room and, and see competitors even on some, some table together, we've got a common cause and we've got a common customer. Our passengers, you know, our customers, they don't care for all of our organisational boundaries. They don't get to see where an airline's responsibility ends, an airport's responsibility begins. They don't care what's government. They don't care what's private. All they experience is the journey. And that journey, of course, needs to be safe and it should be seamless. And we are all individually accountable for doing that. But our conundrum, our connective conundrum, is that we can only achieve our individual accountabilities by acting collectively. So achieving our sense of purpose, you know, what we do, why we get out of bed in the morning when it's raining outside, it's, it's only possible because our relationships behind the scenes are so strong. But even strong relationships are tested, right? And it's a pretty wild world out there. The Minister spoke about this— fuel shocks, trade wars, you know, actual wars. As a kid, I could hardly believe what we're seeing today. And in a hotels conference, a global hotels conference, right in on that chair there, actually, I was asked a simple question. What's the future of travel? Shouldn't you be nervous investing in aviation right now? Like, shouldn't you be really nervous? And I kind of froze. I was feeling a little bit naive in all of that because it felt kind of cosy and rosy in my little Adelaide bubble. You know, international passengers are up 20%. And, you know, but I couldn't deny that the visibility through that fog of war was poor. We were pouring billions of dollars into the ground. We've got billions of dollars of capital at risk. All of our organisations do, to differing degrees. But I wasn't nervous. And I was thinking, should I be nervous? No, we shouldn't be nervous. And our optimism isn't blind. Because when you're investing in the ground, like we do for 40 years or more, or investing in the sky for the same sort of period, You've got to dial down that short-term noise. You can't be naive to it, but you do need to dial down that noise. And when you do that, it becomes clear that there is nowhere else in the world and no other industry we'd rather be, rather be investing, rather be working, rather be living. And we're in a wonderfully clean, green, stable, incredibly wealthy— sometimes it might not feel like it, right? Incredibly wealthy on a relatively, relative sense, safe and secure nation. We're on the edge of Asia, you know, our doorstep opens to the fastest growing economies in the globe right now. And from a technology perspective, these wonderful aircraft coming off production lines— we'd like them to come off faster, of course— they are tailor-made to our geography. There's never been a time when aircraft could fly further, more cost efficiently, than they can today. So, you know, we've got these structural tailwinds that most industries and most nations could only dream of. And Nick Jones from SATC loves this, and when I bump into him before a conference, he always regrets it because he told me actually that yesterday there were more planes in the sky than any day in human history. And, you know, and that's in the backdrop that we're operating. in right now. But all these wonderful structural tailwinds, you know, they don't build resilience, the big R word. We never quite know what it means, but, um, we certainly do know when we, when we sift through it all that it's our relationships that build those resilience. And, and that's why we're here. Investing in those relationships is not a nice-to-have. Um, when you're doing so, you don't need to feel guilty. you might be having a good time, but you're also forming the foundations of aviation resilience in our endlessly volatile world. So, you know, in aviation there's lots of anticipated shocks, you know, and we model these things out, imagine what they would be, but it's always the ones that, that sting you in the tail unexpectedly that do the worst damage. And no single airline, no single airport, no government agency, none of us can navigate that volatility alone when the chips are down. But it's the partnerships that we build on trust that mean that we can move faster, we can be, we can be smarter, and when it's time to recover, we come back stronger together. But, you know, you look around and we're competitors, you say. Many of us are. And that competition sharpens us. It's great. But we are also, you know, for our customers, for our communities, we are always, of course, walking— working towards that same end. So, you know, we gather at CAPA today in Adelaide in South Australia. Let's remember what we're really doing. Yes, we're catching up and comparing notes and meeting up with old colleagues and rekindling, you know, friendships and relationships, but take comfort that this use of your time, even listening to me now, you know, you are, we all are, building the resilience of an entire industry, one relationship at a time. So thank you very much for your commitment to aviation, to coming to Adelaide for CAPA. We're stronger together. Welcome to Adelaide and have a fabulous conference, everyone.

Joe Zsakacs:Thank you.

Copyright policy: All transcripts on this site are the copyright of CAPA - Centre for Aviation. Our reproduction policy is as follows: you may quote up to 400 words of any transcript on the condition that you attribute the transcript to CAPA - Centre for Aviation and link to the original video page. All other use is prohibited. While we aim for 100% accuracy in the transcript, there may be some minor transcribing errors.