State Economy

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (14:19): My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier update the house on how the Marshall Liberal government is creating more jobs and keeping South Australia safe and strong?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:19): I thank the member for Flinders for his excellent question. He is focused on the issues which are important to every single South Australian: the health of South Australia and also the economy of South Australia.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: These are two critical issues for our state, and I am very proud of the way our state has responded to the coronavirus pandemic which has gripped the world. This has been a true partnership between government and the people of our state, working together to educate themselves and ourselves about this pandemic, the way that we can respond, keeping ourselves and our communities, our businesses and our families safe.

We have had a very good result with regard to the health outcomes in this state, but we have been facing the dual crises, if you like, of health and economy. Today, I would like to update the house on how we have been responding with regard to the economy. Can I just say that we have the employment statistics which came out last week, which showed that in the past three months in South Australia we have clawed back almost 34,000 jobs, and 14,000 of those jobs clawed back occurred in August.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: So 14,000 of those were clawed back in the month of August, about 10,000 in the month of July and 10,000 in the month of June. We now find ourselves in a situation where we only have 7,000 fewer people employed in our state now than we had at the beginning of the year. It goes without saying that this is an outstanding result, but there remains much more work to be done. Today, the ABS have put out their Single Touch data series information. Again, this reiterates that, since the August figures came out, South Australia continues to do very well.

In fact, when we look at the detail of this data, it shows that, of the two weeks that this reports, South Australia had the equal highest employment growth in the nation. This is something to be extraordinarily proud of. In addition to that, what we see is that the total wages that were paid over that two-week period increased in South Australia by a whopping, nation-leading 2.3 per cent against a growth nationally of just 0.9 per cent. These are all good signs, but there remains a huge amount of work to be done.

We know that the effects of the coronavirus do not hit every business, every family and every individual equally. While some people are keeping their head above water, and in fact while some people are doing extraordinarily well—some people are doing much better than they were last year—there are still some people who are struggling. What we will now see, whether it be from the federal government level or the state government level, is a more nuanced approach to helping those individuals and those companies who find themselves in a difficult situation on an ongoing basis.

There will be some changes, of course, as we know, to the JobKeeper payments and the JobSeeker payments as of the end of this week. We also know that, in early October, we will be presented with the federal budget, and our state budget will follow up thereafter. The goal of the federal government, the goal of our state government, is to make sure that we can continue to deliver from an economic perspective and continue to keep the people of South Australia safe.

Earlier today, we announced that we would be lifting the restriction on people coming into South Australia from New South Wales. This will provide another benefit to our economy, but it will also provide a great benefit to those people who have been dislocated from their family during this difficult period of time. Much has been achieved since the outbreak of the coronavirus here in South Australia, and there remains much more work to be done.

The SPEAKER: Before I call the member for Reynell, I call to order the member for Badcoe and the member for Playford. Member for Reynell.