State Economy

Ms LUETHEN (King) (14:31): My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier update the house on the Marshall Liberal government's plan to keep South Australia safe and strong and on what we can look forward to next year?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:31): I thank the member for King for her excellent question. If someone at the beginning of the year had said that in 2020 we would be putting restrictions on businesses, closing our borders and basically changing and turning upside down the lives of all South Australians I wouldn't have believed them—but in fact this is the situation in South Australia.

I am very pleased that we as a government, in partnership with the people of South Australia, have been able to rise and meet the very significant challenges we have faced this year. We have had to make some tough decisions. We have always done that based upon the expert health advice we have received, and that expert health advice and the way we have gone about following it does actually keep our state safe and it does keep our economy strong. That is very important.

As I was saying earlier, we have been very significantly buoyed by the facts presented in the ABS job statistics in October, with 13,000 full-time jobs created in a single month. That is an outstanding result, a result that we have delivered: Health, SAPOL, the businesses in South Australia, and the confidence of consumers to go out and employ our fellow South Australians.

We brought down what I think was the biggest single hit of economic adrenaline in the history of the state with our budget handed down last month: more than $4 billion worth of stimulus and support and $16.7 billion worth of infrastructure and building programs right across every facet of life here in South Australia. We know that our $10,000 and our $3,000 grants have been extraordinarily well received. We know that in just the last few weeks $31 million in grants to over 3,300 businesses have been received and are injecting confidence back into that sector. That is in addition to the $186 million worth of grants that assisted 18,700 businesses in this state.

The budget together is designed to support and stimulate 100,000 new jobs. Of course, we are also delivering the very biggest infrastructure project in the history of South Australia, and we are lowering taxes on businesses. One area I feel very, very proud of is the way we are investing in new skills in South Australia. The NCVER figures are a joy to see, with more young people doing apprenticeships and traineeships here in South Australia, and every one of us should be very proud of that.

I know that a fundamental part of keeping our state safe and our economy strong is the QR code COVID-safe check-in system which was implemented earlier this week. Already 17,500 locations and 350,000 users have used this system. In fact, more than 650,000 check-ins have taken place, which is really good. The member for King asked: what does 2021 hold? It is going to be exciting. We are going to continue the recovery from COVID-19. We are going to hopefully see the rollout of a vaccine in South Australia and across our country and across the globe.

There will be new events, new projects, new opportunities resulting in more jobs for our state. I am really looking forward to continuing to deliver those congestion-busting road projects in South Australia. I am looking forward to turning the first sod on the new Entrepreneur and Innovation Centre building, which is going to go up on Lot Fourteen. I want to see our schools continue to be revitalised in South Australia as we move to take year 7s into secondary school from the start of term 1 in 2022.

I know that the construction projects for new facilities at the Repat and Modbury Hospital will be a centre point of our investments next year. We will have the upgrade of Memorial Drive, a fantastic facility. We will continue to build what matters, whether that be the Port Wakefield overpass or whether it be the Joy Baluch Bridge duplication. We are going to do what we can to support every single business, every single household in South Australia to keep our state safe and our economy strong.