Tuesday, 31 March 2026

 Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:53): (2442) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events, and it is regarding the Avalon air show and the lack of ongoing funding for that event, which as we all know, is a global event that attracts nearly a thousand exhibitors and many hundreds of people and delegations from overseas and is an amazing opportunity for our advanced manufacturing sector to put their best foot forward and compress months and months of business development into a trade show. It is a world-class event equal to any in the world, but it is an event that does not have its own infrastructure. If you compare it to somewhere like the Paris air show, the Paris air show is a permanent event with its own infrastructure; it does not have to set up and pack up each year. There are ongoing operational costs that we have in Melbourne that other events do not have, and therefore a bit of modest subsidy against it versus the return on investment of $250 million back into the Victorian economy is a no-brainer of economic policy, innovation policy and manufacturing policy to support.

You can only contrast that with the support for three NFL games coming to the MCG. The New South Wales government considered this deal with the NFL but said at $15 million a game it is too expensive, they do not see the return on it. I would not mind going to an NFL game – it is pretty good – but the return on $45 million for three one-off events at the MCG is in no way comparable to the long-term productivity and economic growth benefits that we derive from the Avalon air show. So to be putting $15 million into that and not some figure that is considerably less than that, which we would have to commit to every two years, into the Avalon air show is frankly economic vandalism and a ludicrous decision that sends the worst kind of mixed signals to our manufacturing sector and the worst kind of market signals to our investment sector. It basically compounds Victoria’s problem not in inventing IP and developing IP but in commercialising IP; that is really where we have got to improve, and events like the Avalon air show do just that. The action I seek from the minister is to please reinstate the funding to the Avalon air show long term, but do not just reinstate it; also include a capital component so that the infrastructure can be built up event to event and the operating costs themselves can reduce over time.