Grievance Debate

COVID-19 Economic Response

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee) (15:32): There is no doubt that our esteemed public servants Chief Public Health Officer, Nicola Spurrier, and Commissioner of Police, Grant Stevens, have successfully steered our state through the COVID-19 pandemic. The Premier took the prescient decision to remove himself from the process and ensure that he was not part of the Transition Committee that made decisions about how our state would respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and, as a result, we have had the best health response to COVID-19 in the country. But, remarkably, we also have seen the worst economic response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the recession that it has caused our state from this state government.

There is no doubt that our state's economy is currently the worst performing in the nation. We are the only state in the nation to have lost jobs since the beginning of the pandemic—the only state. We have the highest unemployment rate in the nation. We have the longest wait for South Australians who are looking for work to find a job; six months is the median time taken. Our young people suffer the highest youth unemployment rate in the nation. Our population has the lowest proportion of working age adults either in work or looking for work—that is, we have the lowest participation rate in the nation.

Last financial year, we not only suffered a recession—our first in nearly 30 years—but our economic growth rate was the worst in the country. South Australia is one of the few places in the country where private business investment is going backwards while the rest of the country is surging forward. If business in South Australia are not choosing to invest, to expand their operations, their plant and equipment and their productivity, then how can we expect them to employ more South Australians?

Our state's share of national exports continues to fall, and trade imposts from China will only make this worse. In the most recent CommSec State of the States report, South Australia has dropped two places in the state rankings. While the government is currently championing the one-off COVID-inspired return of expats to South Australia, expert economists—including Darryl Gobbett and Deloitte Access Economics' Chris Richardson—warn that this temporary influx will reverse as soon as international borders reopen.

It is clear that while our state has benefited from having the best health response to the pandemic, the Liberal government's economic response to the pandemic has been the worst in the country. At every turn, the Premier and Treasurer's response has been too little too late. For the first six months of the pandemic, we had the lowest stimulus spend in the country—less in actual terms than Tasmania.

There are still hundreds of millions of dollars of promised stimulus funding that have been committed but not yet spent. It is incredible that Victoria was locked down for nearly four months but their economic performance outstrips our own. The reason for all of this is that the Premier and his government are asleep at the wheel. We have had 14 months to respond to the economic crisis that besets South Australia, yet we are the last in the nation.

It is not a recent phenomenon. Every year this government has been in, annual economic growth has fallen before and during the pandemic. Every year this government has been in, annual jobs growth has fallen before and during the pandemic. With the end of the federal government's JobKeeper scheme and the state government's slow stimulus rollout, small business remains hobbled by restrictions with no further help from the government.

We have had 12 months to prepare for a vaccine rollout, and we are the worst in the nation. With no community transmission and virtually no flu season, we have the worst hospital ramping in our hospitals that we have ever seen. In the middle of a pandemic, the Premier and the Treasurer have spent more than a year picking a fight with ambulance officers that has literally cost South Australians their lives. Finally, today they have capitulated to the ambulance officers.

Major infrastructure projects, which could be in construction and employing thousands of South Australians, remain delayed under this minister and his chief executive. The government is beset by crises. The Premier's response is to deny that there is a problem. There is always an obscure statistic at hand to deny the facts. There is always a pile of dirt, a golden shovel and some high-vis in a city alleyway somewhere to try to convince us that he is doing something.

The fact is that if the Premier cannot admit that there is a problem then we know that he will not be getting to work doing something about it. While the Premier continues to live in denial, the rest of our state suffers. It is time for this government to finally act.