If you reap the rewards of living in SA, it’s your job to defend it | Sam Shahin

The NSW premier’s mockery of SA last week made Sam Shahin – and many others – furious. Take a cheap shot at our city and there must be consequences, he writes.

Last week, Dominic Perrottet slung a slur at South Australia that made Sam Shahin – and many other South Aussies – furious.

Last week, Dominic Perrottet slung a slur at South Australia that made me furious. I called him out on social media and I think we should all do that more.

I am no politician but I understand business, and I can categorically say that culture sits above everything else in a successful organisation.

I think the same applies in politics, especially in a federation.

I do appreciate that our premier’s response appeared ‘stately’ but there’s a time to be stately, and there’s a time to take the gloves off.

We shouldn’t be out looking for trouble, but if trouble falls in our lap, we should not turn the other cheek. I would have returned serve, and would have had every minister in every portfolio call their counterpart in NSW in protest.

Then I would have instructed every CEO in every government department do the same.

It has to hurt, and it has to be felt, and Perrottet – and anyone else – that thinks they can serve a cheap shot at our city and culture must know that there will be consequences.

Anyone that thinks they can serve a cheap shot at our city and culture – Premier Dominic Perrottet included – must know that there will be consequences, writes Sam Shahin. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Julian Andrews

I do not subscribe to the banter of ‘most liveable city’ and any other accolade for being ‘the best’.

You can guarantee that if you’re the best at something now, you will have to surrender that throne at some point, and often at the ‘next survey’. It’s a short lived glory.

We should focus on consistently being a great place to live, a convenient city with access to a broad range of privileges and services, and in a safe environment; we’re not a busy city but a city where you can be busy if you so choose.

I choose not to engage in a chest-beating competition with my interstate counterparts on what they have that we don’t.

Let’s flip that narrative for a moment though – I feel challenged when I start to objectively think hard about what we have here in SA that no one else has.

I am the most parochial South Australian, but consider this challenge objectively for a moment: We have good wine but so do most States. We have nice beaches but so does everyone else. We have a wonderful city but Australia is blessed with many. We have great universities but so do the others … You get the idea.

What they don’t have is the extraordinary high level of accessibility and convenience of access that we do.

We are a sophisticated, convenient city where you can have breakfast by the Torrens, take a scenic drive in the magnificent Adelaide Hills, lunch at McLaren Vale, lounge on the magnificent beaches at Noarlunga or Brighton, take in a dose of culture at the Migration Museum, all in one day.

Nowhere else can one manage the variety and convenience, and at such a high level where expectations are surpassed. We are a city of experiences.

Let’s stop engaging at what we’re not and steer the fight to what we are. Focus on our differentiators, and at every possible opportunity, drive home our ‘unfair’ advantage, our ‘differentiator’ – what we have that no one has.

Dr Sam Shahin in his garage at the Bend Motor Sport Park in Tailem Bend. Picture Matt Turner.

Although it was a one-day headline, I can promise you Perrottet’s comments were the subject of ridicule in every second pub in SA, and every pub in NSW.

Many people, even in NSW, may not have thought much of the comment but subliminally it scars any future thoughts of engaging with SA, whether at a cultural, education, trade, investment or tourism level.

When any of us are faced with a decision to make where two or more options are ‘close’, it’s often the small intangible things that sway the decision.

Think of the last time you decided where to holiday – I’d bet most places on your list had a nice beach and a nice bunch of eateries, but the decision often comes down to what someone said, or someone did, a comment you read somewhere, or a bad wrap someone wrote.

So imagine your elected leader, your most senior state representative, scalding an entire state! Whether that derogatory comment stuck or not, it will cost SA and it will undo so much of the good work so many people do for SA.

Let us collectively entrench a culture of equality, and an innate drive to protect our state from attack.

This is everyone’s job, not just a Premier, but politicians from all sides, academics, journalists, workers, everyone. If you reap the rewards of living in this great place, it’s your job to defend it.

Let us not bend over to anyone’s ridicule nor anything that degrades our state.

We do not claim to be better than anyone else, but likewise, no one is better than us.

Note: These views are Sam Shahin’s own – they do not reflect anyone else’s views, nor those of his business.