State Economy

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (14:27): Supplementary: can the minister advise what has gone so wrong that before the impact of coronavirus and before the impact of bushfires the state economy has gone backwards in the first full year of the Marshall Liberal government?

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Minister for Trade and Investment) (14:27): There's a whole range of factors that could impact on that. The areas that I have been responsible—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: The opposition will listen in silence. Minister.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Wortley, you know better.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: There is a whole range of factors. As the members opposite would know, I've been responsible for almost two years for tourism, which was at record highs. Members opposite know that I am responsible for trade and investment, and we have got particularly strong in particularly international education and some others, the exports: wine, copper, a number of them are at record highs.

Sadly, there have been some other aspects of the economy that haven't been performing as well as we would have liked. That is disappointing, as I said in my previous answer. Now we are focused on doing what we can to combat, obviously, impacts of the coronavirus going forward, which will be significant—we know that—and also making sure we can look to where we can get further investment in South Australia and capitalise on some of the natural advantages we have.