Committee for Adelaide chief Bruce Djite says a ‘small pocket of very influential people’ are holding SA back

South Australia is being held back by a “small but influential and affluent group” of opponents, Committee for Adelaide chief Bruce Djite has told a discussion debating how to grow the state.

A “small pocket of very influential people” with a disproportionate influence on the future of South Australia are holding the entire state back, leaders at The Advertiser’s Building a Bigger, Better SA event have heard.

A plan to grow Adelaide’s population to two million by 2030, first proposed by Committee for Adelaide chief Bruce Djite, drew support and criticism during discussions.

An impassioned Mr Djite said a major barrier to the plan was a small but influential and affluent group of opponents, taking particular aim at residents in Adelaide’s inner north.

“There is a small pocket of very influential people that have a disproportionate say on what is good for the entirety of the state,” he said.

“It holds the whole state back.”

Hickinbotham Group managing director Michael Hickinbotham, Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor and Committee for Adelaide chief executive Bruce Djite at the Building a Bigger, Better South Australia event. Picture: Morgan Sette

Mr Djite, who participated in a panel discussion with Michael Hickinbotham of Hickinbotham Group and Adelaide Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor, suggested those groups were stifling progress.

“There’s a plot of land that’s been empty (in North Adelaide) for about 30 years. It’s laughable ... that’s completely unacceptable,” he said.

“It’s all well and good to have the people of Medindie protect their patch of grass, but their patch of grass is actually getting relatively smaller. The risk is that we don’t have any vibrancy.”

The former soccer star, who said he had received widespread support for the plan, said the consequences of failing to pursue such a target would be “we keep regressing and we keep going backwards”.

He said the state represented 8.4 per cent of the nation’s 1990 population but today that figure was just 6.8 per cent, and South Australia has the oldest median age of any mainland state.

“We want young people here to bring the vibrancy, to grow the economy because that’s what South Australia has been missing out on for a long time,” he said.

“I must give credit, with the last four or five years, that has started to turn around.”

Premier Steven Marshall and Opposition Leader Peter Malinauskas were also asked about the plan during a conversation panel that opened the event.

Mr Marshall said growing Adelaide’s population to two million people by 2035 was a “reasonable target”, and would not rule out bringing that timeline forward to 2030.

But Mr Malinauskas said two million was a “reckless number” and “pretty dangerous proposition” in the timeframe.

“The state isn’t equipped to be able to handle that level of growth in the space of eight years,” he said.

Ms Verschoor, who agreed a growth strategy was necessary, said there were currently 26,000 residents in the City of Adelaide and the city was “on track” to reach 41,000 by 2050.

“That is way too slow - we want to achieve that by 2030,” she said.