Economic Growth

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:49): My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier explain to the house and the people of South Australia why in each and every year of his government, economic growth has fallen in South Australia? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr MALINAUSKAS: The Australian Bureau of Statistics national accounts figures show annual economic growth in South Australia was 2.4 per cent in the year 2017-18, falling to 1.1 per cent—more than halving—in 2018-19, and falling further to minus 1.4 per cent in 2019-20.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:50): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. Economic growth is a very important statistic that we need to be focused on, and we in this government are. This is one of the reasons why we commissioned the work to create a growth state. This was our agenda: to grow the overall size of our economy when we came to government.

Under those opposite, South Australia was underperforming. In fact, if you look at the 16 years of their government I think that the economic growth in South Australia was hovering at around about 1 per cent on average. This meant that every time the national statistics came out we were getting further and further behind the peloton, and we said, 'This should not be occurring.'

What we have done since coming to government is to make sure that we are focused on supporting our traditional sectors but also look at nine key areas to continue to grow our state and to grow jobs in South Australia. Even despite the fact that we have had to deal with the coronavirus, we have continued to release all our strategies for those nine areas. They were developed in consultation with the sectors, all designed to grow our economy. We are pleased we have progressed here.

Mr Malinauskas interjecting:

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: The Leader of the Opposition points to statistics. Again, the cherrypicker at large is doing his work. The state final demand rose 0.6 per cent in the December quarter. We know that this followed the previous quarter growth of—are you ready for this?—6.7 per cent. Just to return to the point that we were talking about before, under those opposite what we have seen is a very low growth rate over an extended period of time—not cherrypicked statistics.

Despite the coronavirus, when those opposite were telling us that we were going to be heading towards another 100,000 unemployed people in South Australia unless we did this, that and the other thing, the reality is we managed that. We managed to get as many people through the pandemic as possible and, as I was saying before, there are more people employed now in the most recent fortnightly statistics than there were 12 months ago, and we have had the second highest growth rate here in the state.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The leader!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: I was quite interested in the Leader of the Opposition's request for me to refer to the disclaimer, so I quickly took a look at his extensive hydrogen policy because I thought: would there be a disclaimer on that? The disclaimer was nearly as long as the policy. And, sir, for your help and instruction, I am pleased to read the disclaimer:

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Oh my goodness! Usually when you put out a policy you want to get an endorsement. That's not an endorsement. Here are your advisers running a mile—running a mile from your cobbled together only policy that you are going to be taking to the next election so far. This is the laziest opposition, most incompetent opposition we have seen in this state. Still 10 months from an election, they've got 1¼ pages and not even their advisers want to back their policy.

The SPEAKER: Leader.

Ms Cook interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, the member for Hurtle Vale! The leader has the call.