Employment Figures

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (16:34): My question is to the Premier. Is the Premier aware of how many consecutive months of employment growth there has been in South Australia?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (16:34): No. I am not aware of the exact number but, again, give credit where credit is due. The South Australian economy has had growth in employment. The question that we should all be considering, before we get all excited and try to attribute success, as the leader is suggesting: is how is the rest of the country going? This is the point. The leader would like us to imagine that he, and the punishing policies that he had in place, was responsible for growing employment in South Australia and that somehow we operated independently from the rest of the economy in Australia.

Do the graph and take a look at the difference between job growth across Australia and job growth across South Australia. Yes, there has been an increase, but stop patting yourselves on the back. If you think that was acceptable, then you need to ask yourselves: why were you thrown out of government? Because the people of South Australia did not believe that the Labor Party was growing our economy in a sufficient velocity that we were seeing right across the rest of the country. We are focused on doing everything we can, every day in this parliament, to grow our economy, to create more jobs and to keep young people here in South Australia.