South Australian Labour Force

S.E. ANDREWS (Gibson) (14:41): My question is to the Treasurer. Can the Treasurer update the house on the state of the South Australian labour force?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer, Minister for Defence and Space Industries, Minister for Police) (14:41): I thank the member for Gibson for her question, because it is yet more good economic data for our state again, reaffirming our place as a national leader when it comes to economic performance and a substantial improvement on where things were three years ago.

In today's figures there are more than 61,000 South Australians now in work who were not three years ago, 61,000 more people in jobs—an unemployment rate, as the Premier referred to before, of 3.7 per cent. There have only been 15 monthly reports from the ABS Labour Force since its inception in 1978—and what a fine year that was—and of those 15 months, all of those where the unemployment rate for South Australia had a three in front of it have been in the last three years under the term of the Malinauskas Labor government. It is a really strong economic performance. We are also seeing, once again, that South Australia is leading the pack in this regard—only behind Western Australia, of course, as they make full use of all the other states' GST to grow their economy.

As the Premier said, you do not have to take our word for the state's economic performance. You have CommSec, quarter after quarter rating our economy as the best performing or the second best performing economy in the nation, and the Business Council of Australia, as the Premier referred to before, labelling South Australia as the best place in Australia to do business, the best place in the country to do business. The Property Council, as the Premier also referred to before, labels it as having the best planning regime in the country, to make sure that as we tackle our share of the nation's housing crisis we are best placed to tackle it.

Even our close comrades at the Institute of Public Affairs rate this government and our economy as performing strongly—even our traditional comrades at the IPA. The South Australian Business Chamber, previously Business SA, have most recently reported that business confidence and business conditions are on the way up in South Australia. Further, there are more businesses in business today than there were three years ago.

The Premier has made absolutely clear, not just today during question time but over the course of the three years, the ambitious policy agenda we are committed to rolling out to grow our economy. It has been three years since the last election. This is the fourth and final year of this parliamentary term. In football parlance, it's the fourth quarter. For those opposite, the premiership quarter is already done. That was last year. Your captain got reported and is still before the tribunal. You have lost some key positions to the other team. You are struggling, aren't you?

You have to get some policies out. You can't just keep complaining. You have to get some policies out. If you want to grow the economy, you have to have an agenda, you have to have things you can get behind. We are all waiting. All the pressure, all the focus, is on the Leader of the Opposition. Has he got a better vision for South Australia? We all doubt it.