State Economy

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:19): My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier explain to the house and the people of South Australia why the Victorian economy continues to outperform South Australia's despite it being locked down for nearly four months? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr MALINAUSKAS: The Victorian economy outperforms the South Australian economy on the most recent labour force data, with a lower unemployment rate and more jobs created since the beginning of the pandemic and with higher state final demand growth in the most recent quarter and higher gross state product growth in the most recent financial year.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:20): I am not wishing to compare myself with Victoria; I am wishing to make sure that we do everything we can to grow and prosper our state and that is exactly and precisely what is occurring.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: It is exactly and precisely what is occurring. Whilst those opposite hate the fact that this is what is occurring, this is precisely what is occurring. When we take a look at one of the key indicators that we should be considering in South Australia at the moment, the net interstate migration, the figures here are showing a very, very positive turnaround over and above what we saw under the previous government.

On a quarterly basis, under those opposite, they were driving capital and young people out of our state. Most often, we had between 1,000 and 1,500 net interstate migration under the previous government. In fact, in the last year of that pitiful government that preceded our government, they had 5,600 net migration out of this state. That's disgraceful. They had no positive policies to address the exodus—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The leader will cease interjecting.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —out of this state of capital. Young people were not given a future. By contrast, when we came to government, we said we would perform in this area and we said that we would, in the first four years, turn off the tap of that exodus of capital and young people out of this state. I am very pleased to report to the house today—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Wright!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —that this occurred within our first two years in government. In fact, when we look at the quarterly statistics in March this year—before COVID we had gone from the terrible and pitiful quarterly performance from those opposite of about 1,000 to 1,500 leaving the state to just over 100. So you see, sir, the people of South Australia were feeling more confident about being in this state before COVID. During COVID, that has accelerated even further and we now have a net migration to South Australia. This is the first time this has occurred in this state since before the State Bank crisis.

We are doing everything we can to provide opportunity for the next generation, jobs for the next generation, hope for the next generation and jobs around future industries. We are always going to be hugely respectful to our important traditional sectors like agriculture, mining and manufacturing, construction, and tourism in South Australia. These are extraordinarily important sectors for our economy but we are unashamedly focused also on developing jobs in future industries like defence, space, cyber, machine learning and hydrogen, with a real policy for hydrogen and not a 1¼-page press release.

Where is the detail? It was so flimsy—1¼ pages is now a policy from the Labor Party. What a hopeless, lazy, incompetent opposition that we have in South Australia. It is an absolute and utter disgrace that they have not put policies out to the people of South Australia ahead of the next election. When we raised this in the previous answer, the Leader of the Opposition piped up and said, 'We've got a policy. It's the hydrogen policy'—1¼ pages. I think the member for West Torrens is upstairs now, writing out some policies. He is up in the dream factory writing out some more. He has probably done two or three pages. That's nine or 10 policies for the Labor Party. He will be down here quick smart to present the people of South Australia with some new options for the future.

But the people of South Australia will not be deceived again. They know exactly and precisely what they would get if that hopeless opposition ever returned to the treasury bench. They remember Transforming Health. Those opposite have amnesia, but the people of South Australia haven't forgotten and they know who the health minister was at the time of the last election.

The SPEAKER: Before I call the leader, I am just going to remind all members that there is a general degree of disorder at the commencement of question time. I would just indicate a general warning. The level of interjection needs to cease so that at least I am in a position to hear the member who has the call to ask the question and so that the minister endeavouring to answer the question can be heard in silence. Is the leader seeking the call?