Future of Adelaide Aquatic Centre a key issue in South Australian election

With South Australians heading to the polls on Saturday, the election battle between Liberal Premier Steven Marshall and opposition Labor leader Peter Malinauskas has seen the future of the ageing Adelaide Aquatic Centre.

The election will be the first test of incumbency since the arrival of Omicron, which may influence the Federal election campaign that will follow in May.

With one of the best performing of the nation's economies, compared to the eastern states, South Australia was relatively untouched by the Coronavirus pandemic - it endured just one six-day lockdown, and had managed to control community transmission with light-touch restrictions.

Premier Marshall’s handling of the crisis widely was commended, largely backed by the opposition leader adopted a bipartisan approach.

As a result, it is local issues that are likely to influence whether Premier Marshall will serve more than one term in a state where Labor had governed for the previous 16 years prior to 2018.

With the Adelaide City Council facing increasing costs in running the facility, the future of the Adelaide Aquatic Centre has long been in doubt.

No longer the state’s major aquatic facility since the opening of the SA Aquatic and Leisure Centre, a proposal by the Adelaide Crows to redevelop it as part of a planned administrative and training centre were halted in April 2020 over COVID-19 related funding concerns.

Since that time, the Council having been looking a options including a new Centre on a new site and demolishing the current facility.

However, with campaigning in the South Australian election commencing last month, on 12th February, opposition leader Malinauskas pledged to fund an $80 redevelopment of the facility.

While Malinauskas’s proposal was criticised by Premier Marshall, on 22nd February he pledged that if his government was re-elected it would spend $25 million on the facility as part of a three-tier investment with the Council and Federal Government.

Both plans include a 50 metre and 25 metre indoor pool, large indoor water play area and leisure pool, learn to swim pool and spa.