STATE ECONOMY

Mr MARSHALL (Norwood—Leader of the Opposition) (14:12): I have a supplementary, Mr Speaker.

The SPEAKER: I will hear it.

Mr MARSHALL: Given the Premier's answer that he does not accept that South Australia is in recession, can the Premier explain how South Australia is not in recession? Given that in both trend and seasonally-adjusted terms, state final demand has declined for the previous two quarters, gross exports have declined for the two consecutive quarters and net exports have declined for the two consecutive quarters, how can we possibly not be in recession in South Australia?

The SPEAKER: That is indeed a supplementary. The Premier.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier, Treasurer, Minister for State Development, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for the Arts) (14:12): Simply, spending in the economy is not a measure of production in the economy and gross state product is a measurement of the productive effort of the economy, which is the measure of whether we are growing or contracting. That is measured once every year and last year we grew at 2.1 per cent and we fully expect to grow again this year. We have grown for the last 10 years and I think those opposite have been predicting contraction for the last 10 years. They have been wrong every year for 10 years; they will be wrong again.