Premier Jay Weatherill invites fury with ambitious Cleland National Park cable car plan

PREMIER Jay Weatherill is inviting fury on several powerful fronts by reviving long-dormant and wildly controversial plans for a cable car to Mt Lofty. Chief Reporter Paul Starick analyses the plan and its impact on the 2018 State Election.

• Lofty ambition? Cable car proposed for Cleland
• Who is Allan Zeman, the Hong Kong billionaire behind the Cleland plan?
• Read the Government’s vision plan for Cleland
• Cleland’s koalas laid low by flu epidemic
• Why Cleland is so popular with families

BY reviving long-dormant and wildly controversial plans for a cable car to Mt Lofty, Premier Jay Weatherill is inviting fury on several powerful fronts.

The proposal unveiled on Monday morning by Mr Weatherill and Hong Kong entrepreneur Allan Zeman is both ambitious and vague.

The scale of this ambition will test Adelaide’s renowned reluctance to embrace change and scepticism at major developments, even if this has been tempered by the unalloyed success of Adelaide Oval’s $535 million redevelopment, opened in 2014.

The environmental lobby’s power will be tested too.

In August, 1989, the-then Labor premier John Bannon’s Cabinet scrapped a $55 million Mt Lofty hotel and cable car link to Waterfall Gully, saying the project’s scale was too large for the environment and the area in which it was to be located.

Among concerns expressed in a 109-page environmental study were the clearance and disturbance of vegetation.

Politically, Mr Weatherill will be relatively unconcerned if opposition is confined to the immediate area.

Cleland and Waterfall Gully are in the heart of Bragg — Liberal deputy leader Vickie Chapman’s blue-ribbon seat.

The neighbouring seats are also Liberal-held — Morialta, Kavel and Heysen — although considered under some threat from Nick Xenophon’s SA Best because of Rebekha Sharkie’s incumbency (for now) in the same area, in the federal seat of Mayo.

The original Mount Lofty cable car designs from the 1980s.

But Mr Weatherill will be wary of environmental opposition spreading more widely, in case there is a prospect of a local repeat of the Greens historic win in the Northcote by-election, in inner Melbourne earlier this month.

If the Cleland “vision” is fully realised, a cable car would link Adelaide’s eastern suburbs — presumably Waterfall Gully — with Cleland Wildlife Park, Mt Lofty Summit and Mt Lofty Botanic Garden.

Cleland would boast a hotel, Australiana shopping village, scenic restaurant, treetop walk, hang gliding simulator, zip-lining and year-round mountain bike access.

It is not dissimilar to Grouse Mountain, on the doorstep of Vancouver, Canada.

This spectacular attraction includes North America’s largest “aerial tramway” and, like Mt Lofty, is extremely popular for locals to scale in a climb called the Grouse Grind.

Looking down at the city of Vancouver — The Grouse Mountain cable car

The timing and pitch of this morning’s Cleland announcement was astute.

Just as Adelaide Oval prepares to bask in an influx of tourists for the first day-night Ashes Test, a proposal to upgrade another Adelaide icon to attract overseas visitors is unveiled.

Sceptics can be reminded of the early resistance to the Oval upgrade, particularly among some Liberals.

Unlike the publicly funded Oval redevelopment though, there is the loose promise of private investment.

Mr Zeman is a renowned and credible Hong Kong entrepreneur, repeatedly hailed by the respected Forbes magazine for giving the island’s Ocean Park a radical, profitable facelift and earning the tag “mouse killer” for fending off rival Disney’s challenge.

He also is known as “The Father of Lan Kwai Fong” for his leading role in developing the renowned entertainment quarter.

Lofty plans for Cleland National Park

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Crucially, Mr Zeman was flanked on Monday morning by his friend, transport magnate Lindsay Fox, who declared his willingness to invest if Mr Zeman does.

Mr Zeman was engaged in July to consult on Cleland’s future and, even though this was considered a prelude to possible investment, his role has formally finished.

The proposal he developed will now be taken to market.

It is easy to see the attraction to Chinese tourists, in particular, of such a plan. It complements the luring of the first scheduled direct flights to Adelaide from mainland China, through China Southern, which started in December last year. Nature-based tourism is worth $1.2 billion to SA and all sides of politics want this to grow.

Lindsay Fox, Allan Zeman, Premier Jay Weatherill at the Cleland Wildlife Park re-development announcement. Picture: Tricia Watkinson

Hopefully for Mr Weatherill, Mr Zeman’s business zing will rub off. The Premier in May, 2015, started pitching to overseas investors a five-star resort at Cleland, as part of a $100 million redevelopment.

This was just four months after deep cracks emerged in funding for the now-scuppered deal to develop a 407ha site at Gillman, which the government sold without going to tender.

At that time, Mr Weatherill cited the impending loss of Holden’s Elizabeth plan, closed last month, and warned of a “massive economic challenge”.

“We’re going to have to do some incredibly controversial things if we’re going to turn South Australia around. And if you think this is controversial, and you think this is a challenge, you haven’t seen anything yet. We are going to be putting in front of South Australians some very big changes, which I think will cause them to gasp a little,” Mr Weatherill declared at the time.

Concept plans for Cleland Wildlife Park redevelopment. Picture: Supplied

Monday morning’s proposal is nothing if not controversial.

Detractors will already be writing if off, just like Mr Weatherill’s other bold proposals to change SA’s time zone or his favoured citizens’ jury scuttling a nuclear agenda.

Given the Cleland proposal will be taken to the market for about a year, it is unlikely there will be major progress either way before next March’s state election.

This means Mr Weatherill might not be around to lead the project’s biggest test — whether it can overcome the hurdles of scepticism, environmentalism, financing and implementation to positively transform Cleland and surrounds, while attracting sufficient visitors to be profitable.