Liberal party president John Olsen to front Adelaide oval hotel parliamentary inquiry

Liberal Party president and former premier John Olsen is expected to be quizzed by a parliamentary inquiry over his involvement in the proposed Adelaide Oval hotel deal.

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Liberal Party president and former Premier John Olsen is expected to be quizzed over his involvement in the proposed Adelaide Oval hotel deal when a parliamentary inquiry into the project gets underway in February.

Stadium Management Authority figures and representatives from Adelaide City Council and the hotel industry will also be called to give evidence during the investigation.

A parliamentary select committee was established on Wednesday to inquire into SMA’s plan to build a 128-room hotel at the oval, using a $42 million loan provided by the State Government.

The committee, which was created following a push by the Opposition, will also look into the performance of the oval and the SMA; the financial deals it has with the Adelaide and Port Adelaide Football Clubs as well as the South Australian Cricket Association; and the impact the mooted development could have on the city’s hotel industry and parklands.

Mr Olsen, who is the deputy chairman of the SMA and president of the SANFL, will be the most high-profile of the witnesses to front the committee.

Labor spokesman Stephen Mullighan said the inquiry “needs to get to the bottom of how this deal (between the SMA and the government) was struck”.

Labor spokesman Stephen Mullighan

State Liberal Party president John Olsen

“The Adelaide Oval was redeveloped to ensure we had the best stadium in the country to deliver a boost to the finances of the Crows, the Power and the SACA — yet the SMA is now crying poor and is seeking a taxpayer subsidy for a new hotel,” he said.

“This inquiry will get to the bottom of why Adelaide Oval is such an expensive venue to visit for football and cricket fans, yet the SMA claims it needs a new hotel to make more money.”

Mr Mullighan also said the committee needed to “get to the bottom of what role Liberal Party president John Olsen played in negotiating this loan with the new Liberal Premier Steven Marshall”.

Australian Hospitality Association SA chief executive Ian Horne said while his organisation supported a hotel at the oval it still had concerns about the process.

"Our concern is that many of our members will have also committed to building hotels and gone out and got the money the traditional way and the SMA is being giving money by the government," he said.

"They don't get access to government funding, they have to run the gauntlet — The argument would be did the Adelaide Oval try to get loans."

A key figure behind the $535 million redevelopment of the oval, former Infrastructure Minister Patrick Conlin, has also weighed in on the SMA’s project, saying the redevelopment would never have been accepted if there was an inkling of a hotel being part of the stadium.

"It took hours and hours of persuasion to get the Upper House to agree to the redevelopment legislation; if we added or flagged a hotel as part of it then we would have never gotten it through," he said.

"It is surprising the Liberals now want a hotel there when they were against the redevelopment in the first place."