At the discussion by industry leaders on the Adelaide Airport delay

Adelaide was not invited to the launches of WOMADelaide or the Adelaide Festival of Arts. She was not invited to the opening of the Federal Law Courts (which building, by the way, she quite liked and was willing to give a chance to see how it settled down). She did not get a guernsey to the Jacob’s Creek Tour Down Under corporate tent. She had not even – despite her name – been at the launch of Adelaide Writer’s Week.

But as one of the state’s industry leaders, she did get the nod for the secret meeting with Business SA to discuss the appallingly embarrassing situation of the new Adelaide Airport terminal which was bringing in nothing but international shame. All eyes were on Adelaide. It was front page news – every second day – in the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Courier-Mail. It was on page three of the AFR three times a week plus Saturdays. It was all anyone interstate and overseas was talking about.

The meeting was timely, Adelaide thought. Something needs to be done. Adelaide was very pleased to take advantage of the excellent on-site creche facilities provided by Business SA for not just the duration of the meeting, but also the networking opportunity which followed. It was never too early to get your toddler mixing with the state’s future best.

It was an excellent meeting. One of the best to which Adelaide had ever been, and it certainly suited her outcome-driven style. There was so much this small, but influential group could do, and by the end of the meeting they had identified the key stakeholders with whom they needed to engage and agreed that the engagements would begin next week. The first phone call would be to the agenda-setters over at ABC 891.

‘So who exactly was there?’ her husband asked when they were safe in bed discussing the day they had just spent at the state’s cutting edge. Adelaide could trust her husband, of course she could, but if she were honest with herself (which she could be, because the light was out), she enjoyed the opportunity to have just a little more knowledge than him.

‘I’ll just say this,’ Adelaide told her husband, a curious – but not nosey – man. ‘There was more than one soy chai latte ordered from the Cibo delivery express.’