EMPLOYMENT FIGURES

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (14:27): My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier confirm that the government's own job growth projections do not forecast the creation of 100,000 jobs between 2010 and 2016?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier, Treasurer, Minister for State Development, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for the Arts) (14:28): It depends what forecasts the member for Davenport is talking about. There have been a range of different forecasts from a range of agencies.

The Hon. I.F. Evans interjecting:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Well, that wasn't what the question said. A range of different agencies have a range of forecasts. We have an ambitious target to create 100,000 jobs by 2016 and we are not prepared to sacrifice that target just because it gets tough and is hard to achieve, because that sits at the core of our project, which is actually to drive the creation of jobs in this state. One of the ways in which we are seeking to do that in this budget is to bring forward the training effort in relation to our commitment to train 100,000 people by 2016, and we will achieve that well before 2016.

Of course, the target of achieving 100,000 jobs by 2016 will be a difficult target to achieve. We fully acknowledge that, and we fully acknowledge that there are conservative estimates that are made about jobs growth in the budget. There are stronger forecasts of growth in other documents, such as those published by our training authorities who seek to anticipate the growth in demand for employment over a period of time and to meet the demands associated with that for training purposes. So there are different estimates, and different agencies make their own forecasts, but it is true that in the budget papers there are conservative estimates of jobs growth, and we hope to exceed those.

The SPEAKER: Supplementary, member for Davenport.