An entrepreneur whose company wants to use the Holden factory site to grow medicinal marijuana on a commercial scale says the cannabis industry will pack a huge "corporate punch" rivalling the economic power of Silicon Valley, as one of his directors delivered a tirade about stifling government bureaucracy.
Ben Fitzsimons, chief executive and co-founder of the Australian Cannabis Corporation, said on Sunday the cannabis industry was a big potential growth engine for both South Australia and Australia, and authorities and governments needed to be much more proactive in paving the way otherwise a huge opportunity would bypass the country.
"That's the problem, we don't make things easy," he said. "We don't want this opportunity to walk past our door without grabbing it," he said.
One of the company's directors, interactive entertainment entrepreneur Shane Yeend, is being much more blunt.
He gave a withering blast to local public servants and the South Australian Government for their lack of enthusiasm and bureaucratic approach.
"We should do a Donald Trump. Take the lot of them out and then start again," Mr Yeend told The Australian Financial Review.
"Instead of watch and see, it needs to be seize and prosper," he said. "There's a psychology of negativity," he said. "The cannabis sector is going off in the US. First on ground wins".
South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill on Sunday told reporters that government agencies had been working with the company, and he was supportive of new industries such as medicinal cannabis because of future job creation prospects.
"We've been working with them closely. Surprised to hear them say otherwise," he said. Mr Weatherill said the Holden site in the northern suburbs of Adelaide, which is due to close in late 2017, isn't owned by the government. "If they want to get hold of Holden, we don't own Holden. It's being used for another year," Mr Weatherill said.
Australian Cannabis Corp's plans are less advanced than other Australian companies such as Ecofibre, backed by finance sector identities Barry Lambert and Chris Cuffe.
Ecofibre in early December revealed it had decided to stop production from a large property in the Hunter Valley in NSW and move to the US because the legal and regulatory framework there was much better. Medicinal cannabis is now legal in more than 30 states in the US.
Mr Yeend's comments came after he placed a full-page advertisement in the Sunday Mail newspaper in Adelaide railing against the lack of energy and an over-arching negativity among government officials in backing game-changing industries.
'Could not organise a sausage sizzle at Bunnings'
"It seems we pay so many public servants who could not organise a sausage sizzle at Bunnings, and that is being nice," Mr Yeend said in the advertisement. He also cited the situation of BRW Rich Lister billionaire Con Makris, who is shifting his property empire head office to Queensland because of better growth opportunities.
Mr Yeend describes himself as a "serial entrepreneur". He built a large interactive games company called Imagination Entertainment, which in 2008 received a $180 million buyout offer from John Malone's Liberty Group in the US which was later withdrawn as the GFC hit. The GFC then triggered financial strife for Mr Yeend, who in 2007 collected the Australian Entrepreneur of the Year award. Earlier this year, Mr Yeend's Imagination acquired the Australian start-up Sociabl, while he is also the founder of Helistar, a commercial drone company, and a larger parent called Drone Corp.
Mr Fitzsimons said the state of Colorado in the US had been on the front foot in legalising cannabis for medical and recreational purposes, and $3.2 billion had been injected into that state's economy because of its pioneering approach.
He acknowledged that the politics of medicinal cannabis were difficult for governments from a "PR perspective", but said on every front the proposal was a winner because it was "renewable, green and is helping people", along with the potential to create up to 2500 jobs. It was a much better bet than a nuclear waste dump in South Australia, which is now in the too-hard basket after a Royal Commission.
"It frustrates me that we've limited our thinking to digging a big hole in the ground and being a rubbish dump for the world's waste," Mr Fitzsimons said.
One of the other directors of Australian Cannabis Corporation is Reece Formosa, who set up the home delivery business Delivery Boyz, which is now known by the name DLVRD and is backed by the wealthy Shahin family, who run a vast network of On The Run petrol stations and convenience stores.
