Should we change South Australia’s name to Adelaide

SOUTH Australia should change its name to “Adelaide”, says the man tasked with promoting us abroad. It works for New York, but is it the right move for us?

London-based SA Agent General Bill Muirhead.

SOUTH Australia should change its name to “Adelaide” and we should dust off the idea to build a nuclear spent fuel repository in the state, SA’s chief overseas marketer believes.

Bill Muirhead, who is the Agent General for South Australia in London and was a founding partner of international advertising company M & C Saatchi, also says we should give away a vineyard as part of a reality television show which would garner an audience of millions around the world and could be repeated “over and over”.

Mr Muirhead, a fifth-generation South Australian who is in Adelaide to receive an honorary doctorate from the University of South Australia, said “Adelaide, Adelaide” like “New York, New York”, made sense because we were basically a city state. “What’s the biggest city outside of the CBD?” he asks rhetorically.

The answer is Mt Gambier, with a population of about 27,000 – indicating the concentration of the population in the metropolitan area.

“My point is we are really a city state. But we are on a land mass four times as large as the UK. Why not be ‘Adelaide, Adelaide’?’’ he said.

Mr Muirhead rubs shoulders with business leaders, royalty and other international movers and shakers in his role regularly promoting the state in the UK. He was heavily involved in the state’s rebranding in 2013 and says he has been introduced in the past as a representative of “southern Australia”, and people sometimes think the state is everything from the middle of the country down.

Mr Muirhead laid out six audacious ideas to get people talking about SA while accepting his honorary PhD.

“I just thought it would be interesting to have a few ideas which would get people talking about us,’’ he said.

Mr Muirhead’s second idea was to focus the state’s tourism marketing budget entirely on Kangaroo Island.

“We’re not going to build an opera house,’’ Mr Muirhead said. “But Kangaroo Island is like a ‘mini-Australia’. We have the best beaches, the best food and wine in the world. And to get there you have to go through Adelaide.’’

Mr Muirhead said Kangaroo Island was a “brilliant name’’ but not many people overseas had heard of it.

“If we could have one of the iconic images that define us (Australia) overseas be Kangaroo Island that would be great.’’

Mr Muirhead said an easy fix, and an “irritating irrelevance’’, was the state’s time zone being half an hour behind the eastern states. In 2015, former premier Jay Weatherill announced plans to change the time zone to move half an hour forward but the plan was shelved when it became clear it would not be able to pass through parliament.

Mr Muirhead said South Australia should also seek to become the “world’s leading experts” in nuclear power, and should revisit the idea of a nuclear spent fuel repository in the state.

The latter idea was examined in a royal commission looking into the state’s role in the nuclear fuel cycle headed by former governor Kevin Scarce. It was shelved by the former Labor government after it became clear it did not have bipartisan support and a citizen’s jury opposed the idea of a high level waste repository in the state.

The current State Government’s position, laid out on Premier Steven Marshall’s website, is that: “There remain many unanswered questions about the viability of an international waste dump and far too many financial risks.

“In South Australia’s current economic and financial circumstances, the Liberal Party maintains there are far more important and immediate priorities to pursue than this.’’

Mr Muirhead said Adelaide should also aim to be the world’s first “carbon free” city. He does not mean carbon neutral, but carbon free, with only electric vehicles allowed within the CBD and all buildings powered with renewable energy.

He said it was important to be first.

“When you do something first then the world will notice you,’’ he said. “I think it will bring a huge amount of money and people here.’’

Mr Muirhead’s final idea was to stage a reality TV show with eight to 10 couples making wine, and vying to win a vineyard.

Mr Muirhead said they could be involved through cultivation, to crushing, making, blending and bottling wine. “It would serve to demystify wine and winemaking and people would watch it,” he said.

Adelaide was designed by SA’s first surveyor-general, Colonel William Light, who is commemorated in a statue on Montefiore Hill overlooking the city.