Economic Stimulus Package

Dr HARVEY (Newland) (14:26): My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier update the house on how the Marshall Liberal government is strengthening the South Australian economy during the COVID-19 crisis?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Point of order: the question contains argument.

The SPEAKER: 'Strengthening the economy'. I hear the member for Lee's point of order. I am going to allow the Premier to answer, but I will take it on board. Premier.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:27): Thank you very much, sir. I thank the member for Newland for his question. We all know that the South Australian economy is hurting very much at the moment. Tens of thousands of South Australians have lost their jobs in the wake of the coronavirus hitting the world. We are not immune from it here in South Australia. We are not immune from it in Australia, and we have been working very much hand in glove with the federal government to do everything we can to put supports underneath the Australian economy and make sure that we can come out the other side stronger than before.

My government was the first in the country to respond with a stimulus and support package of $350 million. This included $120 million worth of new road infrastructure projects. These included a range of projects, including regional road repairs, work on the South Eastern Freeway between the tollgate and Crafers, upgrades to the Heysen Tunnels, work on the higher capacity north-south freight route bypassing Adelaide, and sealing the Adventure Way and the Innamincka Airport road. In addition to that, we put another $70 million into the expansion of the Economic and Business Growth Fund in South Australia, and we allocated $15 million to upgrade our country hospitals here in South Australia and bring forward very important projects to those communities.

We have also put additional support through the Planning and Development Fund. My understanding is that that has now closed and there are some excellent projects which the minister and ultimately cabinet are considering. Of course, we have already announced a further $22 million going into investment in nature-based tourism here in our state and $10 million going into the maintenance of our public housing stock in South Australia.

I am very pleased that much of that work has been contracted and work has already begun on some of our public housing stock in South Australia. But, not to be outdone because other states then responded with their own stimulus and support packages, we came out with our second wave, a $650 million jobs rescue package in South Australia. This included a range of new ways that we were supporting business in South Australia and also, most importantly, protecting jobs into the future.

This new $650 million package provided significant payroll tax and land tax relief for thousands of businesses across the state, a boost to the Cost of Living Concessions in South Australia and the waiving of liquor licence fees for hard-hit hotels, restaurants, cafes and clubs. There is also the establishment of two very important funds: the $300 million Business and Jobs Support Fund and the $250 million Community and Jobs Support Fund. A number of these measures have already started to be provided, which I am very, very pleased to see happening.

I have a little bit of an update for the house now. Payroll tax relief is already being provided to eligible businesses in South Australia, and $10,000 cash grants have started to be paid, with more going out next week. We are rolling out in that regard an estimated $190 million worth of payments to eligible businesses in South Australia.

We have provided $3.5 million in support payments that have been made already to RTOs, and 94 per cent have accepted VET continuity offers, and congratulations to the loquacious minister on that particular line. Also, $4,300 cheques are in the mail today to more than 1,000 taxi licence holders in South Australia, and 11,380 payments have been made to existing eligible Cost of Living Concession recipients, totalling around $7.9 million.

There is much more that I could talk about, there is much more that has been done and there is much more to be done here in South Australia to ensure that we come out of this terrible coronavirus stronger than before.