JOBS GROWTH FORECAST

Mr MARSHALL (Norwood—Leader of the Opposition) (15:18): Can the Premier confirm to the house that in excess of 33,000 full-time jobs have been lost in this state since he brought down the May budget?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier, Treasurer, Minister for State Development, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for the Arts) (15:18): The member uses original employment data in a way that anybody who has any knowledge of the ABS statistics regards as utterly inappropriate. That is why people use trend and seasonally-adjusted data: because it makes no sense, because there is a natural ebb and flow in a particular set of months were employment rises and falls.

It is simply nonsense to drag out original data and use them once again in the completely inappropriate way that he does to try to drive down confidence in the state of this economy. He has been caught out doing it today and he continues to do it in question time and people are beginning to be awake.

Since 2002, 113,000 jobs have been created in the life of this government—something we are proud of, something we have invested in, new industries created. Consider the malaise that this state had got into when we took over in 2002; we are now building a stronger South Australia and we have only just started.