Job Creation

Ms LUETHEN (King) (14:13): My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier update the house on how the Marshall Liberal government is creating more jobs for South Australia?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:13): As people are aware—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —this is the number one focus of our government: creating sustainable, long-term, fulfilling jobs in South Australia. It is also fair to say that there are some fairly significant headwinds on the international, the national and also the state scene with regard to job creation, but we are not going to be deterred by that; in fact, we use this as motivation to redouble our efforts to make sure that we can keep as many people employed in South Australia and grow the jobs market.

We currently have in excess of 848,000 people employed in South Australia at the moment. I have great cause for optimism that we are going to be able to create more into the future. I would like to outline to the house, in response to the member for King's question, some of the programs that we are putting in place that will do exactly and precisely that.

Number one, we are very significantly investing in creating more apprentices and trainees in South Australia, making sure that we can transform the skill base that we have in South Australia to meet the projected needs that are coming our way. There is absolutely no point in burying our heads in the sand, like those opposite did when they were in government, when we saw the commencement of apprentices and trainees fall every single year virtually for the last four or five years. We accept that that is the trend around the rest of the country, but we don't want to participate in that trend here in South Australia. We want to buck the trend; we want more people taking on apprentices and trainees.

I am very pleased to report that last year 700 companies in South Australia took on an apprentice or a trainee for the very first time in their company's history. That is something that every South Australian should be very proud of. We have an ambition to create a significantly higher number of apprentices and trainees in South Australia to meet those future needs. When the NCVER figures came out just two weeks ago, for the first three quarters of last year we had a 17.1 per cent increase in the number of apprentices and trainees in South Australia. That is something certainly to celebrate.

We also celebrate the fact that we are looking at creating more businesses in South Australia. This is one of the reasons why we have invested in Lot Fourteen and the contract that we have with Stone and Chalk in terms of start-ups and scale-ups in South Australia. They have been phenomenally successful, particularly in New South Wales and also in Victoria, where they have been into that market recently. They are now in South Australia. They already have 38 companies at Lot Fourteen in their incubator and accelerator, and we expect that to increase. In fact, the incubator and accelerator that we have authorised and funded in South Australia is larger than New South Wales and double the size of Victoria. I am sure it's going to create a lot more jobs.

Last week, I was down at the Naval Group. I was there in August last year and they had 110 employees. I was there on Friday of last week and they had 200 employees. That is a massive increase and they are well on their way to achieving their very significant ramp-up of 1,800, which is what they were telling me on Friday that they are expecting down there. So it is a massive increase in the number of jobs going into that defence sector.

There is the space sector as well. Dr Megan Clark, head of the Australian Space Agency, had a slide up at the space forum last week where she said that there are already 171 projects on the books for the space sector in Australia, with 31 per cent of $1.6 billion coming to South Australia.

These are just some of the reasons—I have run out of time—why I'm confident that, despite the headwinds that exist in other jurisdictions and here in South Australia, we will weather the storm, we will focus on creating jobs and we will keep more South Australians here in our state.

The SPEAKER: Before I call the member for Kaurna, for the first five minutes of question time the opposition's behaviour was impeccable and I commend them for that. But, after that, unfortunately I have to call the following members to order: the member for Lee, the leader, the members for Light, Playford and West Torrens, the deputy leader, the member for Badcoe and the member for Hammond.