House of Assembly Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2) 52 2 Parliament of South Australia House of Assembly published Question Time Jobs Growth Forecast JOBS GROWTH FORECAST Mr MARSHALL House of Assembly Norwood Leader of the Opposition JOBS GROWTH FORECAST Mr MARSHALL (Norwood—Leader of the Opposition) (15:15): I don't know what answer he thought he was giving. With 34 per cent youth unemployment across the state, why has the industry and skills development DFEEST budget been underspent by almost $3 million? The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL House of Assembly Cheltenham Premier Minister for State Development Minister for the Public Sector Minister for the Arts JOBS GROWTH FORECAST The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier, Treasurer, Minister for State Development, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for the Arts) (15:15): The commitment of this government to training and investment in training has been unprecedented if you just look at all of the various factors that go up to actually providing young people with the labour power. That is what it is: it is actually putting power in the hands of young people to actually sell their labour so that they can make something with their lives. That is what skills are and the first thing we decided to concentrate on is to make sure that they actually complete 12 years of schooling. Recently, we have just announced that 92 per cent—91.9 per cent, to be precise—of young people are staying on to year 12, when it fell to a shameful low of 67 per cent for those opposite. The first responsibility is to make sure that young people get those 12 years of schooling because we know that those who have 12 years of schooling are going to be competing for more jobs than those who do not. That is the minimum responsibility and, of course, the pool of young people who are actually not in training or in employment is tiny. In absolute numbers, it is tiny, so to use rates like they do for youth unemployment is once again seizing on a statistic to try to talk down the South Australian economy. They are always trying to find something bad to say about the South Australian economy. That is what those opposite do. They want people to feel scared about the future; they want them to be fearful about the future. They want them to think that there is something bad happening in the state economy, but can I say that after the experience of the last few years federally and the experience of the federal government and that awful period in our national life where there was so much negativity, people are looking for something positive. That is why they will reject those opposite.