Single Touch Payroll

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (14:35): My question is to the Treasurer. Are there any recent ABS figures on single-touch payroll which indicate the pace of economic recovery in South Australia?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (14:35): I am sure all members will be delighted to have seen the figures released late this morning, or at lunchtime today, by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, indicating the pace or extent of economic recovery in all the states and territories throughout the nation. Pleasingly, as I said, I am sure all members, no matter their political persuasion, would welcome these figures, that since the low point of the global pandemic in the middle of April last year there has been a 10.1 per cent growth in jobs in South Australia, which leads the nation and all states and territories.

Previously, we had trailed Western Australia in terms of the pace of economic recovery as measured by the single-touch payroll figure. The national figure is 7.2 per cent and our bigger Eastern States jurisdictions are in and around that mark, at 7 per cent and 7.5 per cent for New South Wales and Queensland. Victoria trails the field at 5.6 per cent.

As I have said previously, just as important is the measure that the single-touch payroll produces fortnightly, which is watched with as much interest as the jobs figures that the politicians watch. The economists like to look at the employee wages figure because it measures, in essence, the extent of pay and wages that are being paid to people who are working, whether they are working part time or full time, whether they are underemployed or fully employed, or not.

Pleasingly again, what it shows is that since the low point in mid-April of COVID-19 in terms of economic impact, South Australia's growth has been 5.6 per cent. The national figure is just 3.1 per cent, so we have almost twice the national growth rate in terms of growth in employee wages. That is critical because it is dollars in the pocket for those households that are fortunate enough to continue to be working and finding new work or continuing work.

What is critical for the state's and the nation's economic recovery is confidence. I highlighted this in the November budget, that the focus of the budget was twofold. It was jobs and confidence, because we need businesses confident enough to spend more money and invest and to employ more South Australians, but we need more South Australian households who are unimpacted directly by COVID—that is, they have worked all the way through the COVID pandemic—to return to pre-COVID spending patterns.

The household savings ratios in the nation and South Australia have risen extensively. Australians and South Australians are being cautious and conservative, understandably, in terms of their spending patterns, but from the economic viewpoint that's the worst thing in the world. We need people to be returning to their pre-COVID spending patterns, generating jobs and business for small and medium-sized businesses in South Australia, so that those businesses can grow and employ more South Australians. As I said, I am sure all members will be delighted to see those figures that, relatively, South Australia is leading the nation in terms of pace of economic recovery.