State Final Demand

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (14:39): My question is again to the Treasurer. Why has South Australia's state final demand fallen for two consecutive quarters?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier) (14:39): In precise terms, because the net effect of South Australian household expenditure, up 0.5 per cent, and construction of new houses, up 1.4 per cent in the quarter, were offset by a substantial reduction in spending in government agencies, so public sector capital spending was down by 8.3 per cent and investment spending by businesses down 2.6 per cent.

So the net effect is a small reduction in state final demand, but it needs to be borne in mind that this obviously is a tapering off of the public sector investment that we have seen, and we are now beginning to see some private sector investment take its place, and that process is one which we predicted and which we were planning for and have been seeking to encourage. But the truth is that state final demand, as we have had the debate in this house before, is not the best representation of the growth of the economy because it only measures spending here; it does not mention production in the state economy. That figure is one which last year was in positive territory despite those opposite predicting that we would be in recession and had been in recession. When the numbers finally came out, it was demonstrated that in fact we grew again, just as we have grown for each of the previous 22 years.

The reality is that state final demand does not pick up a very significant component of productive activity in the South Australian economy, and that is exports, both interstate and internationally. We know from the most recent figures that our export performance in the year to March 2014 has reached record levels. The year-to-year growth is the second highest in Australia behind the Northern Territory at 14 per cent, so there is good reason to believe that the economy in aggregate is continuing to grow.

I know that those opposite—and we have had this debate ad nauseam, and I would have thought that in this parliament maybe they would desist from the tactic—will pick any shred of evidence, any small statistic to support their conclusion that we are all ruined. We, of course, are optimistic about the future of South Australia. We believe in it and we would ask those opposite to get in behind our efforts, as many are beginning to do now, to talk up South Australia and advance a positive vision for South Australia's future.

The SPEAKER: Before we move to the next question, the member for Unley is warned a first time and the members for Heysen and Morialta are warned a first and second time. The member for Davenport.