Summit of South Australia’s most influential people to drive COVID-19 recovery plan
One of Adelaide’s most successful businessmen has called a summit of the state’s rich, famous and powerful, declaring it’s their responsibility to advance the state post-pandemic.
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A summit of South Australia’s most influential people on Saturday will generate action plans to drive recovery from the coronavirus pandemic and advance the state’s position in the next five to 20 years.
Triggered by The Advertiser’s list of South Australia’s 50 Most Influential People published in February, the summit is expected to involve about 40 politicians, business leaders and other prominent locals and will focus on measures that can be implemented now to change the state’s fortunes.
Participants include senior federal politicians Simon Birmingham and Penny Wong, food identity Maggie Beer, Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor, Australian of the Year James Muecke, UniSA vice-chancellor David Lloyd, Adelaide Football Club chairman Rob Chapman, SA Film Corporation chief executive Kate Croser and the overseer of SA Health’s coronavirus operations, Margot Forster.
The summit was engineered by tycoon Sam Shahin, who in February challenged his counterparts on The Advertiser list to “put that ‘influence’ into action”.
“With influence comes responsibility to contribute and to effect change for the sustainability of our state and that of future generations,” Dr Shahin said on Friday.
“Establishing self-sufficiency within our state will require a high level of discipline and unabashed bias in favour of everything South Australian. I hope this is the start of a state forum of those that have a genuine desire to make a contribution, and that have the discipline and willingness to genuinely participate in shaping the future of SA.
“ … The differentiator of this group is bringing together the individuals, groups and bodies that actually can effect change, without red tape.”
The Shahin family, which was number eight on The Advertiser’s list, has built a $150m motorsport park at Tailem Bend and employs 4400 people across its Peregrine Corporation, including 3100 at nearly 150 OTR outlets. Dr Shahin – Peregrine’s executive director – offered in February to organise a conference of the state’s top 50 influencers to thrash out ideas for “meaningful actions for the good of SA”.
He then partnered with the Committee for Adelaide to organise Saturday morning’s event, to be held at UniSA’s City West campus.
Committee for Adelaide chief executive Jodie van Deventer said: “Our state’s brand story has become more compelling than ever on the world’s stage and one-time negatives, such as the tyranny of distance, are now a positive.”
