State Economy

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (14:16): My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier update the house on how the government is supporting the South Australian economy during the COVID-19 crisis?

The Hon. S.C. Mullighan: Is Sam not here for Dorothys?

The SPEAKER: Member for Lee!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:16): It is a very important question because, as the member for Hammond knows and I think as every member of this parliament appreciates, we have a dual crisis occurring in Australia at the moment. Of course we have the health crisis and, as I have outlined on many occasions to this parliament, I think if you had to be somewhere in the world at the moment you would want to be in Australia, quite frankly.

When you look at some of those images around the world, they are very, very confronting, even in countries where you would expect that their public health administration would be of such a calibre that the scenes that we are now experiencing could not possibly have occurred. So I feel very fortunate to be living in Australia. But, as I said, we also have this dual crisis of an economic crisis. We all saw those soul-destroying line-ups out the front of Centrelinks only two or three weeks ago when a huge number of Australians—hundreds of thousands of Australians and tens of thousands of South Australians—lost their jobs as a consequence of the coronavirus. Through no fault of their own they lost their jobs, and this is something that we have to be very mindful of.

We are again very fortunate in Australia that, because of the fiscal discipline that we have had in this country for decades and decades and decades—and I acknowledge under federal governments and state governments of both major political party persuasion—we have the capability to actually implement an economic stimulus and support package while the emergency is still emerging. There are very few countries around the world that can do this. In fact, many countries are on the back foot trying to supply the immediate health needs.

While the emergency is unfolding, we are putting a platform in underneath our economy, and I want to commend the work that the national cabinet, led by our Prime Minister, the Hon. Scott Morrison, is doing in making sure that we don't forget about this side of the crisis, which is enveloping the world at the moment. As we speak, the federal parliament is meeting and they are doing work on a massive $130 billion support package. I know that this has enjoyed the support of the trade union movement in Australia. It seems that every person in the country is wanting us to support as many people as we possibly can, and we are playing our role here in South Australia as well.

Sir, as you would be aware, on 11 March we announced the first wave of our stimulus program. This was directly in line with the advice that had been received, originally at COAG and then ultimately reinforced at the national cabinet, by Dr Philip Lowe about the types of things that state and territory governments should be doing, fitting in with the national stimulus and support mechanism. We announced a $350 million stimulus package in South Australia, and that has been rolling out ever since.

We were the first state in the country to talk about stimulus, and I am very proud that cabinet moved very quickly to recognise our role in trying to preserve as many jobs as possible through this crisis. As you would be aware, sir, on 26 March we announced a further $650 million jobs rescue package in South Australia. This was a range of initiatives including significant payroll tax and land tax relief, further cost-of-living concessions in South Australia, the waiving of liquor licensing fees in South Australia and two huge funds totalling $550 million. There is still much work to be done. We are applying ourselves to this task every single day.