National Housing Accord

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Leader of the Opposition) (14:12): My question is again to the Premier. Will South Australia have enough skilled workers to meet demand for housing and, if so, how? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA: The BuildSkills Australia October 2024 labour market projections project supply to be almost 20,000 workers short in South Australia in 2025; by 2035, they project the shortfall to be some 47,000 workers.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:13): Let me speak plainly about this: I think that the nation's—and, of course, this is a housing supply crisis across the nation—prospects of being able to realise our collective ambitions, regardless of our politics, to increase housing supply will be compromised if we have a retrograde, introspective, ill-informed debate on migration at the federal level of politics. What I think we need to see in this country is to stop seeing an insular debate on migration numbers and instead have an informed debate, an informed discussion and an informed policy development effort around migration, particularly skilled migration. What we see in the federal parliament is the federal Leader of the Opposition, Peter Dutton, banging the drum of a migration debate—

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The deputy leader can leave until the end of question time.

The honourable member for Morialta having withdrawn from the chamber:

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: He is banging the drum of fear and the like, rather than actually having a serious debate about the interests and the future of the country. On this side of the house, we believe that migration has an important role to play if done in a calibrated way to be able to grow our economy and actually have it contribute to a better standard of living rather than compromising it. It needs to be done in a nuanced and a thoughtful way. To the extent that the state Leader of the Opposition would join this government in a call for a thoughtful discussion in that regard, we would welcome it.

The interjections we heard earlier were seeming to suggest that somehow this government is reticent to have that discussion, when the opposite is true. We have been on the record; both myself and the Deputy Premier have made it very clear that this government is willing to stand up to the federal government, albeit from the same political persuasion, on the issue of international students.

The Hon. S.E. Close: That's right; successfully too.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: Indeed. International students have an important role to play in the net skills position of the country and the state writ large. Every time we diminish the number of international students coming into the state, we actually diminish the skills base rather than increase it in the long term. We are willing to advocate our position and stand up to the commonwealth. We are happy to tell a federal Labor government when they have got it wrong. I would like to see the state opposition tell a federal Liberal Party when they have got it wrong too.