Motions

Interstate Migration

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (11:28): I move:

That this house condemns the state government for its failure to address the exit of people leaving South Australia for study, career and lifestyle opportunities.

This should be of huge concern to every South Australian. It is of huge concern to me because I am one of those impacted parents who will potentially lose my children to interstate opportunities. An announcement has just come out about the people of South Australia. The trend unemployment is 8.1 per cent. The number of South Australians who are now unemployed has risen from 69,400 to 71,000. This is an ongoing crisis in South Australia. It is the most people unemployed since 1995.

The current government has continued to overspruik, giving promises and pledges of creating jobs, creating opportunity, and I can tell you that that is not working. The current government has really been exposed: it does not have a plan. It might have a new minister but it does not have a plan, and I do not think that minister is getting the traction that he once desired.

South Australia is a fantastic place to live, and I note that it has been named in a number of top city lists. However, here is the catch: to live a comfortable life in South Australia you need employment and, for most young people, career opportunities. I say that because in speaking with my son over the last couple of days about his career opportunities, and he has just finished his degree with Honours—I am a very proud father—he is saying, 'Dad, the opportunities in South Australia are limited. Most of my friends have gone interstate; most of them are going interstate because of pay conditions. They can get a job and they can actually have opportunities to further their careers.'

The 20 to 30 year olds are looking for a career, they are looking for a future and to be able to prosper. They are looking to be able to raise a family and buy a house—every Australian's dream is to have that: a family and a house and work away at becoming a great contributor to the state's economy. But what they are doing is going interstate to achieve this, and it is a growing trend. Speaking to one of my daughter's friends who is under 20, in a lot of cases most of her friends are going interstate to attend university and they have already been given cadetships while they are interstate. Yet over here in South Australia there isn't that opportunity, and it raises real concerns.

There is a huge migration of South Australians leaving the state and some of the numbers have indicated that since 2002 more than 36,000 South Australians have migrated interstate—that is since 2002. Under the Labor government, 36,000 have moved and moved for their own benefit. Most of the young ones are not prepared to just wait for an opportunity. They have to create their own opportunity, and in doing that they are having to move interstate. That is the real concern.

We are facing a brain drain here in South Australia. Many of our young, qualified, good minds are moving because there is this view: 'Why would we stay here in South Australia when there's nothing going on?' In a conversation I had with a group of under 30 year olds who have not long finished their university degrees—and some are skilled tradespeople and young professionals—they gave me a comparison: here in South Australia if you could earn a wage of around $75,000, in New South Wales with the same qualifications you earn between $120,000 and $150,000 for the same job.

It is more expensive to live in New South Wales, but the side issue is that there are opportunities there; opportunities to prosper; opportunities to get along in life. There were project managers, architects, young professionals, accountants and people who had studied law in the group I spoke to. And that economic activity is now moving interstate. Out of the 14 that I spoke to in that group, two are staying in South Australia—just two out of 14, and that is an alarming statistic in a small group of under-30s. So, the activity is elsewhere and, as I said, they are looking for a future. Although I do not like to say it in this house, their description of South Australia is: 'It's dead. There's nothing going on here, so we're moving.' There are many solutions, but I will talk about that a little bit later.

We are talking about generation X, generation Y and the young professionals who are going to be raising their families. As I have said, they want to raise their families in South Australia, they want to live close to family, they want to live in a great state but, at the moment, they are just missing out on that opportunity, so they are moving. As I said, it is not because they do not love Adelaide: it is actually because it just feels like the state is dead.

The future of South Australia rests on the shoulders of our young people. If we are to continue to see the high net migration out of this state, the state government barriers in place discouraging business growth and investment and the high cost of doing business in South Australia is probably one of the reasons, as is the lack of confidence.

I regularly talk to business. Whether it is small business or medium-sized business, many have a lack of confidence to invest in South Australia. I know that, with a number of medium to large construction companies, the general discussion of late is that nearly 90 per cent of their work is interstate. They are South Australian-based companies, and their work is interstate. Does that give you a fair indication of just what exactly is going on?

It is not about taking South Australians interstate: it is about doing the project interstate. Some South Australian project managers will go with that, but it is also about giving opportunities to people, whether they are young, whether they are middle-aged or whether they are older, where those projects are, and it is not happening in South Australia. Losing people at a young age, many who have completed school and university, is also a hit to the taxpayers. Who would have funded their schooling if it was through a public system?

In an article in The Advertiser in 2013 regarding the exodus of young people from the state, the Premier said the attractiveness of the city and the exciting job opportunities would keep people in Adelaide and, 'Just asking people to come back isn't enough.' Premier, you have got to create a vibe in South Australia, you have got to create opportunities and you have got to give business an impetus to have confidence to invest. You have got to give investors an impetus. You have got to give them confidence to invest. SMEs are the backbone. They are the bloodline of South Australia's economy.

We see in this current climate that South Australia is in crisis in trying to install confidence in that investment that is coming into South Australia. Yes, we are seeing some international investment in South Australia, and I can assure you that, even in my electorate, many international investors are coming here. They look at what they want to do in South Australia with an amount of money, and we are not talking just millions of dollars: we are talking tens and hundreds of millions of dollars. They come to South Australia and all they get is reams and reams of paper, red tape and regulation that they have to deal with.

There are a number of large investors in the Riverland who have been to Victoria, and the Victorian government have said to them, 'How can we help you? What do we need to do to have you invest in our state?' Do they look at the scenario in South Australia with reams of regulation, reams of red tape, the highest taxes, a high cost of doing business and losing our youngest and brightest for the future, or do they go to Victoria where the Victorian government are saying, 'Welcome to Victoria. How can we help you?' That really does tell a real story.

One of the things that really bothered me at a forum I was at about a week ago, for example, was based on the current migration policy and guidelines. Western Australia, Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria saw an increase in population of 310,000 people in 2014, whilst Tasmania, South Australia, the ACT and the Northern Territory grew by 20,000. Out of that 20,000, yes, 14,000 were in South Australia.

We look across the borders with envy. We look into Victoria and, as I understand it, their population grew by 180,000 new immigrants. So, whether it is international immigration or whether it is interstate immigration, the numbers add up. What the numbers tell you is that those increased numbers interstate are putting people in communities, putting more kids into school, using more services, needing more housing, buying more cars and creating an economy which is not happening in South Australia because we have this exodus of people leaving the state.

Obviously on this side of the chamber the state Liberals have proposed: bringing forward planned stamp duty relief to take effect if elected; committing to reducing payroll tax; slashing emergency services levy bills by reversing the $90 million ESL hike announced in the 2015 state budget; commencing building a north connecter road—that is underway; and finalising and investigating the Strzelecki Track upgrade.

I think many people would look at the Strzelecki Track as an outback destination, but it is more than that: it is about bringing connectivity from the north to the south, particularly with livestock, mining and tourism. In a previous life, I used to travel regularly on the Strzelecki Track; it is an adventure, particularly after it has rained. It is quite a challenge. To seal the Strzelecki Track would bring business from the north to the south.

Too often we hear, 'Let's look north. Let's put our product on a train. Let's put our product on a road.' That is the barrier. Putting a product on a road to head north is not viable. It is one way to wear out a vehicle very quickly. I am sure that Thomas Foods International would be very buoyant and very excited to hear that the state Liberals would be prepared to consider looking at upgrades to the Strzelecki Track so that they can bring their livestock down here and use our meatworks facilities. We can employ more people; we can create an even bigger economy that the meat and the abattoir industry already does. I think that is something that this state is sadly lacking.

South Australia must create a business environment that young people can walk into once they leave university. With the current state of the economy, young graduates are automatically thinking, 'Where to next?' and sadly, it is not South Australia. We cannot afford to continue to see this mass exodus of migration of the young ones—our brightest, our brains. We are not saying that the medium-aged or older-aged do not have the brains, but the young are our future. The young are the brains of the future; they have the skills of the future, and that is something that is really concerning to me. That is the growing trend in South Australia.

This is about this government adopting some Liberal Party policy and getting on with rebuilding the state's economy, and building the state's confidence so that we can actually be hopeful that South Australia will one day become a great state again. We have looked at all sorts of new industries here in South Australia, and it is a little bit like the front page of today's paper.

The government want to talk about time zones, and I think that is absolutely outrageous. We now have the highest unemployment rate in the nation. We have 71,000 full-time unemployed South Australians looking for work, and I do not think it is going to get better any time soon. The forecasts are that unemployment will hit double-digit figures, and I think that is an absolute disgrace. It will be something that be put on this current government's shoulders for many decades to come.

It just seems to be an ongoing issue that is not being addressed. We have relied on resources, and we have relied on the spin. We keep on hearing about 100,000 jobs, but what we need to be doing is putting money into the R&D of an economy driver that we have had for many hundreds of years: that is agriculture; that is food; that is beverage; that is wine; that is advanced manufacturing; that is our service industries; and it is our tourism.

This is about South Australia being able to host international guests and investors and bring those businesses into South Australia. South Australia needs to be a more competitive state. It needs confidence driven into it, and what it needs is a change of government. It needs a Liberal government to make this state a better place.

Mr DULUK (Davenport) (11:44): Can I commend the member for Chaffey for his magnificent motion, because it goes to the core of many of the issues that we face here in South Australia. I stand here as a gen Y MP—

Mr Pederick: Gen Y?

Mr DULUK: Gen Y, yes; I do not have much hair, but I am gen Y.

Mr Pengilly: Not Shandong?

Mr DULUK: Not Shandong—as an MP who has probably chosen to have their professional career in South Australia but as someone who speaks from a graduating class of 2004 at Adelaide University I can say that many of my friends from that class no longer work in South Australia.

If you were the top law graduate in South Australia and you want to pursue a career in commercial law, you probably will not be practising in South Australia. If you were a top economics graduate you probably will not get a job with the RBA here in Adelaide, you will be in Melbourne or Canberra. If you were a top boilermaker or fitter and turner or you want to work with your hands in the mines you will not be doing that in South Australia, you will be doing that in the west or in Queensland. In so many industries, in so many sectors, the best opportunities for people to pursue those careers are, unfortunately, not in South Australia.

South Australia has always had a history of people moving to Melbourne and Sydney, and we are not going to stop that. We are not going to pretend that it is not going to happen. We see people moving from the country to the bigger cities. The problem is the trend of what is happening. The trend is that more and more young South Australians are leaving every day. The other problem is that where maybe a generation ago they were leaving by choice, they were leaving because they wanted to go to see something else, these days they are leaving because they need to—necessity is forcing them to leave South Australia.

This morning we have seen that, once again, South Australia has the highest unemployment in the nation at 8.1 per cent, and the highest level since 1995. Of course, youth unemployment is a high proportion of that. Our population in South Australia declines each year as residents leave this state looking for opportunities elsewhere. Since 2002, the average number of South Australians leaving to move interstate per annum has grown by 9.8 per cent—9.8 per cent of South Australians are leaving. That is not by choice because they love it here, people love living in South Australia and they love the 20-minute city and they love our wonderful schools, environment and services, but they leave for jobs; they leave because there is not the right job mix for them and their families.

Of course, the highest proportion of South Australians leaving is in the 25 to 29-year-old age group, an age bracket that I was in not too long ago. That is really concerning. Young people are studying here and finishing primary and high school here, they are finishing their university or trade years here but then they are leaving. Their trade or university result does not enable them to get a good job in South Australia. The government needs to share responsibility for that and it should hang its head in shame for what it has not been doing.

People are walking away from our state for study, careers and lifestyle opportunities. Young people are enticed by the perception of improved career prospects and a more vibrant cosmopolitan lifestyle interstate and overseas. The brain drain costs our economy millions each year. As I said, we lose people in the 25 to 29-year-old age group. We are losing future taxpayers which means that we have fewer taxpayers funding schooling and the services that go with it.

Unfortunately, young people are not coming back to South Australia as they used to. A good case in point is my cousin who lives in Melbourne. She has a very good planning job in Melbourne and, unfortunately, she has married a Hawthorn supporter over there, and she now has two kids and is staying in Melbourne and she is never coming back to Adelaide. My sister is in the same boat. She works in the wine game, she works for Treasury Wine Estates as one of their top marketing managers. She is not doing it in South Australia. My brother is in London. The member for Chaffey talked about his children and their friends. We all have examples of friends and family and relatives who are leaving the state day by day, and they do not want to.

The other big issue, of course, is that it creates a bit of a breakdown in our own family units as families are relocated. Between 23 December and 2 January we see a mass return of expats coming back to South Australia to celebrate Christmas. You can walk down Rundle Street and have a beer at the Exeter on 24 December and catch up with all your old university mates. They are all having a drink because they have all come back to Adelaide for Christmas but then they go back to Melbourne, Sydney and other states. The long-term effect of this is going to have a very detrimental effect on South Australia.

We need to have our young people staying here. We need to reverse an ageing population. An ageing population does not lead to vibrancy in a city. It is more expensive, obviously, to have an ageing population. There are benefits with an ageing population but we do need young people and families to stay in South Australia. An ageing community means there are fewer ratepayers, fewer taxpayers, fewer volunteers and fewer people to work with.

An ageing population and slowing workforce growth is placing increasing pressure on our local councils. If young people continue to leave South Australia, many of our councils will not have the ability to provide services because they will be outstripped by demand. The government has been banging on about the need for the city to have exciting job opportunities that keep people in South Australia. Unfortunately, the opposite is happening. Attractiveness to the city—mind you it has improved with the Adelaide Oval upgrade and certainly the small bar licences of late and that is one part of what needs to be done, but the real problem is economic growth.

Economic growth is the driver of prosperity; economic growth is the reason why people invest and why people employ, and with the worst unemployment in the nation that is correlated with our poor economic growth at the moment. As I mentioned the other day, our unemployment is heading into double-digit figures. Over 70,000 South Australians are unemployed and many are underemployed. The problem has obviously manifested itself in a lack of employment but also there is a lack of solutions from those opposite.

Last night I was at Hub Adelaide, which is one of our start-up locations, for their Spark forum. I was speaking to one person there who said, 'The problem with South Australia at the moment and the problem with the thinking of the government is that they want to find one employer that employs 500 people in an old-school model of thinking and an old-school manufacturing mindset. In South Australia we need to be looking at 100 employers who employ five people because that is going to be South Australia's future.'

The notion that we are going to have these big industrial firms come into South Australia and employ hundreds of South Australians on a production line, as was the case generations ago, no longer exists. We need to be able to create the right environment, the right regulatory environment for small business to prosper, and that includes removing barriers to employment—payroll tax, stamp duty—as is happening, I have to say, to give credit to this current Treasurer, albeit a bit late. We need to remove those barriers.

Mr Pengilly: Don't give him too much.

Mr DULUK: I will not give him too much, member, but I will give him a little bit. Red tape and council planning. Right now the Attorney-General has introduced his new planning reforms. Planning reforms should really be used as an opportunity to create employment, create jobs and to remove red tape for businesses in South Australia. If we are actually serious about jobs in South Australia, we need to support enterprise, we need to deregulate. We have seen—and this was a comment made to me last night as well—this with the small bar licences. The freeing up of enterprise in that industry has seen not only an explosion in vibrancy but also in job creation.

I think it is a great example when government gets out of the way, when we deregulate, when we set a framework for everyone to work in but people know that framework. Of course, we need rules and regulations, but when we set that framework of acceptable behaviour and when we set a tax regime that supports South Australians, then we will see employment and we will see job creativity.

When we see employment and job creativity, we will see young people making a choice to stay in South Australia, to be part of a community and to reinvest in South Australia, which will add to our skill set. We need them to buy their first home and to have their children here in South Australia—not have them in Melbourne becoming Hawthorn supporters, but having them in Adelaide growing up as good Adelaide Crows supporters. That is what we want; we want more Crows supporters. I commend the member for Chaffey for this motion and for bringing this issue to the attention of the house. It is a very worthy motion.

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (11:53): I rise to also support the Adelaide Crows and wish them well in their endeavours this weekend. They are truly the team for all South Australians. Mr Acting Speaker—

An honourable member: He looks very good there, doesn't he?

Mr KNOLL: He does; he looks like he belongs. I commend the member for Chaffey for bringing this issue to the house. It is an issue that is very close to my heart. I am technically a member of the gen Y generation. I probably act a little more generation X in getting married and buying my first home at quite a young age but still those around me are very much gen Y.

This issue of people leaving South Australia is quite personal for me. I have a younger brother who studied accounting at UniSA and then went on to work for Pricewaterhouse. He felt that his career advancement was limited in South Australia and moved to Perth, and then moved to London to work, and ended up working for the BBC which was quite an exciting job. We were lucky that we enticed him to come home to work in the family business. We offered him less pay, poorer conditions and far, far more hours working under arduous circumstances, but we are thankful that he said yes. It really highlighted for me, and he realised, that his career progression was outside of South Australia.

As someone who has been a proud member of the Young Liberals until I was no longer a young Liberal, I have seen many of my fellow Young Liberals move interstate—very intelligent, capable people who have a deep abiding love for policy and also South Australia—deciding their paths laid outside of South Australia. I now have friends who work within the Reserve Bank, the Department of Treasury and Finance, electricity regulators and a whole host of areas where they are able to ply their talents and skills but unfortunately those opportunities did not lie here in South Australia.

There was a headline in the Sunday Mail a couple of months ago that said 3,000 people are leaving our state every year. This tells a large part of the story because over the last two decades the average has been around 3,000 people a year, and that is a sad indictment on where South Australia is at—the raw and honest opinion of where South Australia is at—and we can see that by people voting with their feet to leave.

This is an issue that has been around for a long time but I do not think the government has been able to address it with any great clarity. We have heard a couple of times already, and the stats are just out for this month, that trend unemployment is up to 8.1 per cent which is the highest in the country, with the national average being 6.2 per cent. It is quite interesting that federal Labor tweeted this morning saying that any unemployment rate with a six in front of it is unacceptable. Well, hear hear to that, and I hope that the South Australian branch of the Labor Party is listening to what its federal colleagues are saying.

Whilst this government may try to spin this result as being other than an indictment on our state, the truth is there are not enough jobs to go around. I will touch a bit more on that later. Jobs are very much central and should not be the complete focus but the vast majority of the focus when it comes to arresting and dealing with this problem. Our labour participation rate remains steady, below the national average by 2.2 points, but the truth is that we have a larger older population because those younger people have left and they are the ones who hurt our participation rate.

I fear, though, that 8.1 per cent trend unemployment is only the start of the story. I had cause in the last couple of weeks to visit Leigh Creek, Moomba and Port Augusta. I look at the jobs that are being lost out there. Moomba was telling us that they were up to 1,400 people down to 600, and that is a cyclical issue that I hope turns around again quickly. Things like Leigh Creek and the jobs at Port Augusta at the power plant and also the jobs at the coal mine that we were able to visit in the beautiful electorate of Stuart really hit home what the changing South Australian economy means. These are well paid jobs by people who are very good at what they do who have moved to Leigh Creek, which is not necessarily close to much else, but they have a beautiful and vibrant community and they choose to live there because there is job opportunity. There was not too much happening in the way of a nightclub on a Saturday night or small bars, although I did find the pub was quite a good place to hang out, but they were there because there were job opportunities and that has to be the fundamental focus of where we are at.

The problem, I believe, is structural from a government perspective in terms of job creation, but it is also cultural. These two issues, the structural and the cultural reasons behind not being able to create jobs and keep young people here in South Australia, were at the heart of the Liberal Party's policy agenda in the lead-up to the last election. These are two things we need to deal with going forward. At the last election, Steven Marshall and the Liberal team put forward a policy of establishing a start-up conference which would have featured high-level international speakers, tried to attract new investors and foster an environment for start-up culture to flourish.

We had a great policy of trying to encourage entrepreneurship in schools, and it was a great policy from the member for Unley that I wholeheartedly supported because that is where we are going to see this cultural change. I was part of a program called Speakers in Schools where I would go and talk to year 10 students about potentially seeing starting their own business as a viable career option. I can tell you that is a pretty tough audience—in fact, probably the toughest audience—to give a speech to, especially about entrepreneurship. But it is exactly that kind of thing, getting our young people to realise that problems in society could potentially be turned into opportunities to create jobs, not only for themselves but to fix problems. It can help to make money for themselves and for the broader South Australian economy.

We do need to focus more on creating a culture of entrepreneurship in South Australia. The government has done some work with stamp duty, but they have also pretended to deal with this issue when it comes to vibrancy, especially within the heart of Adelaide. Can I tell you that vibrancy does not put food on the table. Vibrancy does not, in and of itself, encourage young people to stay here in South Australia. Vibrancy is actually the product of a strong economy; it does not create one, and that is something that I do not think this government understands to any great respect.

Anecdotally, I do know that it is professional people, by and large, who are leaving South Australia, because there are not those opportunities there. Can I say that the loss of a lot of these manufacturing and industrial jobs that we have seen and will continue to see over the next years means that there are less services required from a professional sense. In order to get those people to stay here and apply their professional services, it is those upstream industries that we need to flourish and create, and the only way we are going to create them is by having a small-business start-up culture. That is the only thing that is going to help to support our professional services.

When it comes to new models and new ways of doing things, such as bringing UberX to South Australia, that is another way that this government has been dragging its feet and indeed pushing back on what is otherwise a new way of doing business. Uber is essentially a collection of a lot of small businesses: individuals deciding to create jobs for themselves by interacting with new technology to help us flourish.

In the Barossa Valley, we see this same issue. In the Barossa, we have about 450 kids who graduate from year 12 every year. Of those 450, about 150 leave the Barossa. They leave the Barossa to pursue education opportunities in Adelaide and for a whole host of reasons. When I go around and talk to my high schools, I always ask the same questions: 'What are you going to do next year?' but also 'What do you think of your local community?' Without a doubt, every single one of them says, 'The Barossa is a beautiful place to live, but I have to leave in order to be able to advance the career path I want to head down and to get ahead.'

The Barossa is never going to be able to keep all of its young people, nor does it really want to. We would love those young people to go out and have experiences that they can bring back later on in life when they are deciding to have a family. It is all about job creation and career advancement. That is the primary, and in many instances only, reason that they make these hard decisions to leave.

In the 1980s, Adelaide was home to 20 of the top 100 companies on the Stock Exchange. Today, it is only one, in Santos. We are not going to get those large ASX companies back. What we need to do is turn our attention towards creating a culture where young people do not strive to be a lawyer (and keep in mind I am married to one), but where young people strive to create their own businesses. That is what needs to be cherished, encouraged, rewarded and exemplified in order for us to help turn this state around, so we can create a culture where business creation is at the heart of that. Business creation always invariably leads to job creation.

I commend the member for Chaffey for bringing this motion to the house and I look forward to the Liberal Party helping to be part of and lead the cultural change that is needed to turn South Australia into a more vibrant economy.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (12:03): I rise to also support the member for Chaffey in this motion and acknowledge the tremendous contributions of the member for Davenport, the member for Schubert and others who will follow. The government can say all it wants that it is addressing these issues and trying all sorts of things, but the reality is that the proof is in the pudding and people are still leaving our state for other states and other countries at an alarming rate. Try as they may and say as they may, the facts speak for themselves, and they are alarming.

I am certainly not in the camp that everyone wants to run down South Australia and say it is unexciting, boring, dull or that there is not enough to do. It is a wonderful, extraordinary, remarkable place. The difficulty is that we just do not have enough jobs there. There are just not enough employment opportunities for people, and particularly young people, in our state. We have, by a long margin, the highest unemployment in South Australia compared to any other state.

It is not going to be small bars or time zones or any other distraction that is going to change that. We actually need business opportunities for people—genuine, significant business opportunities not just fun or more daylight at more convenient times or trying to connect ourselves in any way. The modern world could not give a difference about a half an hour time zone between Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. It makes no difference whatsoever.

We need to focus on exports. We need exports internationally and exports interstate. We need opportunities whereby we do not even differentiate between selling South Australian goods and services to Western Australia, Victoria and New South Wales, or internationally. In fact, in many ways it is much easier to do it interstate rather than internationally, not even worrying about the freight difference or the communication difference.

One of the most important differences is that you are far more likely to get paid if you are dealing interstate than if you are dealing internationally. So, many opportunities exist to trade interstate but which still support our economy, which in many ways would be more attractive and, perhaps, most importantly much easier to get into than it would be into international trade.

This motion, while it is relevant to South Australia, is also actually relevant with regard to regional South Australia compared to metropolitan South Australia. We are losing young people in regional South Australia in droves from the country to the city, and the principle is exactly the same. The principle is incredibly alarming. It has been a fact for quite a while now that small, regional towns in South Australia with a population less than 1,000 people are shrinking and that small, regional towns in South Australia with a population of greater than 1,000 are growing. While that might be good for those larger small country towns, it is not actually good for regional South Australia because they are not necessarily just moving from the smaller less than 1,000 people towns to the larger greater than 1,000 people towns: they are actually leaving country South Australia and going to Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne, London or where ever it might happen to be.

We have an example that really is very close to home for me at the moment with this in regard to the government's handling of the northern forests. We have two forests: the Bundaleer forest and the Wirrabara forest, which have operated for well over 100 years in our state. In fact, they are leaders worldwide with regard to forestry in some ways but certainly leaders for Australia with regard to forestry. There are 50 jobs at the Morgan sawmill at the moment which are at risk of being lost while the government looks for other ways to use the land.

Now, I do not mind looking for other ways to use the land, it is a very sensible thing to be doing, but find other ways to use the land in addition to the current commercial forestry not instead of the current commercial forestry. Do not let 50 jobs go so that new ideas can be started which may or may not succeed. Keep 50 jobs and then simultaneously work on those new ideas that may or may not succeed; and I certainly support pursuing those new ideas but as well as not instead of existing jobs.

The member for Chaffey mentioned infrastructure. Now, certainly, from a regional and a metropolitan perspective, if we had the productive infrastructure being built in our state which our government has promised us for a very long time—and the two key points that I would like to raise would be the sealing of the Strzelecki Track, which will help not only regional South Australia but also metropolitan South Australia and other states' economies as well. If we can make the Cooper Basin oil and gas region more efficient because of a sealed Strzelecki Track that will support the Queensland, Northern Territory and New South Wales economies as well. That will make our nation more productive.

Also, an export port. We have been promised and promised a dual purpose, deep water export port in South Australia so that mineral resources and agriculture can get a leg up. It has got to happen. The government promised us two Junes ago that, within 12 months, it would have a plan. It is now September, so the plan at this point in time is at least three months late. We need that sort of work, not because of its immediate job creation aspects—that will certainly help, absolutely will help—but we can only build infrastructure that actually makes our state more productive for decades to come. Pick those projects, invest in those projects, and, yes, of course, the immediate job benefits will help us enormously. We need to address the lack of employment opportunities that we have in our state to hit this issue. It will not be small bars, it will not be time zones.

Lastly, the NBN: the NBN is on its way. We can all argue if we choose to—I do not—about whether it is handled efficiently or inefficiently, or anything like that, but the reality is that the NBN is on its way. I urge all South Australians, regardless of where you live, to take full advantage of the NBN, because that is going to create opportunities which address exactly the matter which the member for Chaffey is raising with regard to people having to leave South Australia. It will also address the expanded issue, which I raise, which is of regional people having to leave regions to go to South Australia or other states. It will be possible for commerce to operate far more efficiently in our state in the future, and that will support our job creation opportunities in South Australia. I wholeheartedly urge all members of this parliament to do everything they can to support the communities that they represent to take full advantage of the national broadband network when it is rolled out.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. T.R. Kenyon.