Grievance Debate

STATE ECONOMY

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (15:09): Today, the December quarter economic data has been released for the public to consume, and we find that Melbourne's The Age reports that South Australia is in a recession. If the public does not want to believe what the government and the opposition say, then go to The Age and believe what they say, because they say, having analysed the data, that South Australia is in a recession.

You will not have to go very far to find a business that will tell you exactly that, because the reality is that the economy, and small business in particular, are really struggling. They are struggling under the highest tax regime in Australia. They are struggling under the worst and highest-cost WorkCover scheme in Australia. They have just had the worst OH&S laws introduced, which puts another blanket cost right across the South Australian economy.

The reality is that the government runs around saying, 'Aren't we great fellows? We have all these cranes on the skyline.' I have counted them; there are about 14 or 15 cranes out there, and that adds up to about $1 billion in debt for every crane, and that is the real issue for the South Australian public.

Let us look at the figures. The poor old Premier says that the opposition, in talking about whether the state is in recession, does not deal with exports. Well, that is simply untrue. Whether you look at trend figures or seasonally adjusted figures, the figures today say that South Australia's domestic economy has gone backwards in both the September and December quarters.

I now come to the Premier's point, 'Oh, you've forgotten about exports.' That is not true. According to the export figures—and it does not matter whether you look at the trend figures for exports or the seasonally adjusted figure for exports—South Australian exports performance went backwards in both the September and December quarters. They declined 2.8 per cent in the December quarter in trend terms, and that followed a decline of 3.7 per cent in the September quarter in trend terms.

The seasonally adjusted figures for exports also went backwards. The reality is that they went back 3.8 per cent in the December quarter and 2.2 per cent in the September quarter. The Premier might say, 'Hang on a minute, we're talking about net exports.' So, let us look at net exports, just in case the Premier tries to be technical and claim he is not talking about exports, he is talking about net exports.

Guess what, Mr Speaker? Net exports have gone backwards in both the September and December quarters on both trend figures and seasonally adjusted figures. Net exports have declined 7.2 per cent in the December quarter and 10.9 per cent in the September quarter. In seasonally adjusted terms, they declined 6.8 per cent in December and 4 per cent in September.

So if your domestic economy is declining, and all the measures of exports are declining, both in trend terms and seasonally adjusted terms, how else would you describe that other than South Australia being in a recession? If you do not believe Her Majesty's loyal opposition, then go to the great, ever-comical commentator this mob put out as their treasurer for the last decade, former treasurer Foley, and see what he says.

When the government wanted to defend itself when the ANZ bank said at one stage that South Australia was in recession, treasurer Foley said they should:

...go back to 'Economics 101', [because] they would have learned that any recession must have at least two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

That is not the opposition saying that; that is the government's own treasurer saying that, when you have two consecutive quarters of negative growth, you have a recession. The new Treasurer says, 'Yes, that's right, but you've got to consider exports.' Well, add in the exports: net exports and gross exports have gone backwards for two consecutive quarters.

This is the result of having a government that went out and trashed the AAA credit rating because they were going to create jobs. If you trashed the AAA credit rating, why are exports going backwards? Why is the economy going backwards? You only have to look at the high taxes, the worst WorkCover regime, and the anti-small business policies. The result of all that is what we have today: The Age reporting that South Australia is in a recession.