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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-03-15 Daily Xml
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INTERSTATE MIGRATION

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (10:41): I move:

That this house condemns the state government for its 10 years of failure to stem the extraordinary flow of young people leaving South Australia for study, career and lifestyle opportunities interstate.

This is one of the significant reasons I ran for parliament and why I have become significantly interested in doing so in recent years. In mulling over my time at university several years ago, I realised that of the 15 or 20 people I was closest to at university only two were still in Adelaide, and this is the same story for many people who have a professional education or who have undertaken courses and the like.

The figures bear this out. For a number of years South Australia has been the second worst state in Australia for interstate migration. This has not always been the case. The last time we held this position in the Australian context was at around the time of the State Bank disaster. The Brown, Olsen and Kerin governments managed to get us right back up into the middle of the field so that we were in fact behind only Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania by the time this government came to power.

In 2001-02 the net migration had 1,308 people leaving South Australia as opposed to moving here, and in 2002-03 (the first year of the Labor government) we got it down to 1,191. Since then it has been a continual stream of more people leaving South Australia than coming back. It got to over 3,000 people in 2004-05. In 2007-08 it had gone over 4,000. The peak was two years ago when it was 4,676 people leaving South Australia as opposed to coming here; and the average over the 10 years of the state Labor government has seen 2,976 more people leaving South Australia every year than coming here.

By comparison, New South Wales has felt the most effect of this over the 10-year period, but we are at 2,976. The Northern Territory has always been struggling there, which is at 739; Victoria has a net of 323 moving away; and the ACT has a net minus of 105 moving away, although I note that it is very much in the positive with people moving to the ACT. The states that are actually attracting new migrants are: Tasmania at 379 (average) over the years; Western Australia at 2,566, although, again, I note that more than 6,000 people moved to Western Australia in 2010-11 than moved away; and Queensland, with 24,574 more people moving there than moving away from Queensland interstate every year.

South Australia does not have the education, career and lifestyle opportunities that are necessary to keep our young people in South Australia. I say 'young people' because the figures bear out the fact that it is largely young people who are moving out of South Australia. The ABS breaks up these figures by age group as well. Over the 10-year average, of the 3,000 people who moved away 586 were aged between 20 to 24, 676 were aged between 25 to 29 and 379 were aged between 30 to 34.

More than half of the people leaving South Australia over the 10-year average—and the trends are pretty consistent over each of those years—are in that 20 to 34-year-old age bracket. We are talking about generation X, generation Y and the young professionals who are going to be raising the families and who will be paying the tax burden for South Australia in the years ahead.

When this debate was approaching yesterday, I thought it would be interesting to get some feedback from the people involved, so I put a note up on Twitter and Facebook encouraging any Adelaide expats who were interested to say why they left South Australia or their experiences, and the breakdown fits into what you might expect: largely education, career and lifestyle opportunities. Lisa Colyer responded:

I left because the reputation of interstate law degrees was better than Adelaide Uni and greater graduate opportunities. My fiancé and I tried to come back and we applied for jobs but they never even sent us position descriptions!

Catie Bartholomaeus said:

Why I left...I spent over 18 months applying for countless jobs of which the majority never got back to me. I have been told countless times that I have a great resume and attitude towards working just not enough work experience yet no one is willing to give me a chance. So I went back to study...I chose Melbourne because they have better networks and support systems within the university and various departments...I don't hate Adelaide there is just nothing there for me right now.

I can tell the house that interstate universities are in hot pursuit of our best and brightest. I have spoken previously of the school captain of Norwood Morialta High School last year, a terrific girl called Gia-Yen Luong. I know the members for Norwood and Hartley have been at countless awards ceremonies where she has received awards. She was the Soroptimist young citizen of the year last year, in the SAPSASA debating team and dux of the school. She did six subjects and got perfect marks in all of them except the research project, where her 4,000-word dissertation on the ethics of genetic engineering was considered too long, so she lost marks for that.

Gia-Yen was offered scholarships to just about every law school in the country. She was approached by the University of New South Wales and was offered a full scholarship there. She found that degree more compelling than the opportunities offered in South Australia. I am very familiar with her situation because I had the honour of her doing some relief work in my office over the summer. She prepared some notes on this issue and talked to a number of her friends.

The responses were largely the pursuit that they got from those interstate universities, promising them the excitement of life-changing experiences, leaving home, coming of age, and the prestige of the international rankings of those universities that encouraged them to go there. This was backed up by the fact that we had people coming from interstate to talk to these best and brightest young kids, which really gets them over the line.

What has the South Australian government done over 10 years to encourage our significant and historic educational institutions to achieve the same sort of attraction for our South Australian students?

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Tell us.

Mr GARDNER: Sweet nothing. We have had tens of millions of dollars committed to international institutions and overseas companies setting up niche classes in office buildings in Adelaide—Carnegie Mellon, Cranfield, these boutique universities—rather than helping our three flagship universities achieve the prestige that they should have. I am a proud graduate of the University of Adelaide and it shames me that we do not have the support from our state government to help the University of Adelaide attract our best and brightest young people, people like Gia-Yen. We would be much better off if we had been able to keep these young people in South Australia.

That said, it is not necessarily a bad thing for some people to get university education interstate and broaden their experiences and their networks, so long as they come back. However, for that to be the case, they need to have career opportunities available in South Australia. There were about 50 Facebook responses within three hours. Danae Doecke said:

...Geology is limited in SA unless you want to do fifo...so we chose WA...better lifestyle where Andrew is home every night.

Jennie Huxley said:

Limited opportunities for career development after grad jobs compared to other states.

Taita Champniss said:

Very limited market for higher value goods, we wanted to start small food and drink business but the numbers didn't add up.

Michael Healy said:

Jobs jobs jobs. Followed by lifestyle. Also if you don't want to work public service there are not many entry level jobs in Adel. Then once you are senior there are not many head offices there.

I think Santos is the only top 200 listed company in Australia with its head office in Adelaide. That means that opportunities for professional development are very, very limited. Lewis Woolston said:

i left for the NT because i couldn't get a decent job down here, came back a few months ago and it looks like i will be leaving for WA this time. Unless i'm willing to work in pubs for the rest of my life and make hardly any money, i can't stay in Adelaide...How about cutting red tape for business, reducing taxes and getting over the terrible NIMBY mentality? No that would be too difficult...

Lauren Catherine Foley has migrated from Ireland to Adelaide. She wrote:

Adelaide doesn't seem to know what it is. It's advertised in Ireland as the place-to-be. Recruitment fairs on all the time MIGRATE TO SA. I was promised work in my field if I would migrate to SA rather than another state. I am still waiting on that dream job 1 and a half years later...Adelaide isn't a small city it's a big city—it's the same size as capital cities in Europe it really shouldn't have this small town mentality...most immigrants are avoiding and leaving SA now as there's not enough permanent job opportunities or opportunity for residency...

And Ashley Dewell, who is now plying his trade as a successful lawyer interstate, says:

I was unemployed in SA—got offered a job elsewhere so I moved.

The fact is that with South Australia being the highest taxing state in Australia—something that this Labor government can again claim credit for—over 10 years South Australia has driven the job opportunities away because it has made the environment unsuitable for business to set up here. It is entirely the South Australian government's fault, and they know there is a problem.

In the 2007 iteration of the State Strategic Plan, target 1.23 was 'Reduce annual net interstate migration loss to zero by 2010, with a net inflow thereafter to be sustained through to 2014'. The failure of this government is evident. While the original goal of reducing the net interstate migration to zero as outlined in the strategic plan has not been met, they have in fact gone the other way. We have nearly 3,000 people leaving South Australia each and every year.

The government went out prior to the last election and promised 100,000 new jobs; perhaps it would have been more honest if they had admitted that they were planning for those 100,000 new jobs to entirely be part-time, because every new job that has been created in South Australia on a net basis since the last election has ended up being part-time.

We can also see that Hugo and Hinsliff have done some work on an interstate migration survey which defines what fields these people who are leaving are in: 48.3 per cent are professionals; 16 per cent, managers; 10.7 per cent, community and personal service workers—and given our significantly ageing population, that in itself is a concern; and then clerical, trades and technicians and so forth down the list.

However, when we delve further and look at what areas of employment we are losing, it is notable that the most significant industry we are losing—16.9 per cent, in fact—is the health industry. This is again going to be a significant concern for the skills shortage in the years ahead. Some of the respondents to my Facebook invitation who responded as to why they were leaving nominated lifestyle opportunities. I note that Robert Crew talked about cost of living. He said that London, New York and Paris are all cheaper and easier to live in than Adelaide now.

When we look at figures such as those released two weeks ago in the Housing Industry Association housing affordability index, we see that Adelaide is the only capital city in Australia that has housing affordability going backwards over the last quarter. The only capital city in Australia where housing affordability is going backwards is Adelaide.

The issues created in this space are really quite concerning. The effect on South Australia of losing these young people is profound. It contributes to our ageing population and the social implications of having an ageing population where we are losing children and grandchildren to interstate are significant, because that places a greater burden on the public sector rather than having families looking after their folks.

The skills shortage that is flagged by the interstate migration survey is concerning and when we lose this professional group of young people, it also leads to a lack of innovation and entrepreneurialism, a lack of energy and vibrancy in the city. The response must be that South Australia must play to its strengths.

Many of the respondents nominated that they love the successful multiculturalism in South Australia, the food, the culture, the great suburbs that we have, the beautiful and accessible natural environment that we are lucky to have and, of course, people largely missed their families, but the key is that, when people move away, you have to get them back before they have kids in school interstate and for that they need career opportunities in South Australia. They need jobs, jobs, jobs.

In my maiden speech I identified this issue. I said that too many South Australians of my generation are now making their futures instead in Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and further afield. Only business and not government can provide the jobs and the career paths that will see educated young South Australians choose to build their futures here where they grew up. But business cannot do that in an environment where we strangle the life out of it with burdensome regulation and massive taxes—massive taxes to the point where South Australia is the highest taxed state in Australia. The cost of doing business and the cost of living is higher in South Australia than in any other state in the commonwealth.

When business is faced by these massive taxes, it is a massive disincentive for them to set up shop in South Australia or to stay in South Australia. The business environment that has been taxed out of its mind to fund the burgeoning public sector bureaucracy, that has blown out of all control under this government, is the legacy of 10 years of Labor government. I will leave the last words in my speech to a comment that was also left on Facebook by another young lawyer called Hannah March, who said, 'What we really need is a progressive Liberal government that actually cares about encouraging young people to make Radelaide their home.'

Mr GOLDSWORTHY (Kavel) (10:56): I am pleased to speak in support of the motion the member for Morialta has brought to the house. I think this government is sending quite a bad message to young people in South Australia. I will give a specific example of how that is the case. It is a matter I highlighted in the house a couple of weeks ago in terms of the really totally unacceptable delays of this government—and an agency that the Minister for Business Services and Consumers has responsibility for—in issuing trade licences to apprentices who have finished all their training and skill requirements.

The specific example I highlighted was that one particular apprentice plumber, who had completed four years of training, all their skills requirements, and the like, had been waiting more than four months for the issuance of their plumbing trade licence. From further inquires I made, it was the rule and not the exception that not only plumbing apprentices but also electrical apprentices and building apprentices waiting for their trade licences to be issued could expect a delay of up to three months by that agency before their qualified trade licence was issued.

I ask you, Madam Speaker, and I ask the house: what sort of message is that sending to the young people of this state? It is a very poor message, a very bad message to the young people in South Australia. As the member for Morialta highlights, it is no wonder we are seeing those numbers that he has quoted in the house here this morning leaving South Australia for interstate. I asked the minister responsible for that agency that question, and he did not give a very comprehensive explanation or reason for the delays, but I received a letter from the minister saying that he has undertaken for a specialist team of investigators to look into the performance of the agency and that he was due to receive a report on that investigation, I think (if my memory serves me correctly), on 9 March, which was last Friday.

The other issue I want to raise that I think is sending a poor message to people who are wanting to upskill themselves to engage in training courses and the like is that I had a constituent contact me yesterday, and this person has undertaken some skills training in the drilling industry, so they are able to go out into far-flung reaches of the state on drilling rigs and engage in the business of drilling operations.

However, in undertaking the skills training through a registered training organisation (I will not identify anybody because I want to do some more research into this issue), this skills training was organised through a registered training office with the support of government funding. However, on completion of this skills training, the person was told, 'Oh, well, there are no jobs here in South Australia; the only jobs that are available at the moment are in Western Australia.'

I understand that two people who completed these particular skills training courses, funded by the government through an RTO, had to go to Western Australia for an interview for prospective employment in the mining industry. I ask why government funding is provided for skills training in this state when there are no jobs in this state at this stage. We do hope that when—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Because people are allowed to leave to get a job.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: The member for Croydon interjects, Madam Speaker. If he wants to make a contribution, get up in the proper manner and stop interjecting, which is out of order. Get up and make a contribution if you so wish. Stop your habitual interjections in the house. If you have something to say, if it is good enough to say, get up and say it. Stop your habitual interjections that are just a nuisance, an absolute nuisance, to the procedures of the house.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member will be heard in silence without too many interjections from my right.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is good to send a very strong message to the member for Croydon.

The SPEAKER: The member for Croydon has been here long enough to know.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: Getting back to my remarks, on this side of the house we supported the legislation in relation to the expansion of Roxby Downs and the Olympic Dam project. We were absolutely supportive of that legislation to see the benefits that the state will hopefully derive from the further expansion of that mineral resource.

I would like to remind the house that a previous Liberal government was responsible for the development of that mine in the first place. All the naysayers in the Labor Party vehemently opposed the expansion and development of that mine when it was before the parliament back in the 1980s. They are recent converts, if you like, to the absolute economic, social and a whole range of benefits that the state enjoys as a consequence of that mine here in South Australia.

What I do hope is that when the expansion does crank up, these people who are undertaking this skills training in the drilling industry, which obviously plays a key role in the mining industry, are able to secure employment here in the state and don't have to look to move interstate, or even go interstate to avail of employment interviews.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Avail themselves.

Mr GOLDSWORTHY: Again! The member for Croydon, Madam Speaker, is directly defying your direction that he will remain silent while the speakers, particularly on this side of the house, are up making their points of view. In conclusion, I congratulate the member for Morialta on bringing this important matter to the house. We certainly look for support from the government benches in relation to this excellent motion.

Ms SANDERSON (Adelaide) (11:03): This is a topic that is very close to my heart. In fact in my maiden speech I spoke about the need to reinvigorate the city to provide employment opportunities and give our youth a reason to stay in our state. We lose too many of our finest young and capable minds to the Eastern States, and more people leave our city each year than are born here. Immigration is the only reason that our state's population has increased.

I want to engage with our young and work with them to find out how we can make our city more liveable for them. I, like the member for Morialta, posted on Facebook asking for comments from young people as to why they thought it was that people are leaving our city in droves. I will not give their surnames because I have not actually asked their permission, but Chelsea says:

I have relocated purely because my course isn't available in SA. It is one of the [very] few not available [that are] offered at 3 unis in Australia.

This actually became a bit of a theme throughout, I noticed, and I thought we were a university city. Something that we might need to address is, rather than having many, many universities covering some of the very same topics, perhaps we should look at a bit of diversity to keep some of our young here. Lulu says:

Because the options available elsewhere are a lot better and more affordable than in Adelaide. Also because there are few student accommodation places available [in Adelaide].

Nathan says:

I know a lot of people who...go interstate for uni courses that are not available here in Adelaide and they then carry on [their] profession interstate as well...it is definitely a contributing factor but not the only one.

Nathan goes on to say he would like to share an interesting discussion with a friend of his who has been living overseas for three years. He says:

I would say the biggest thing is that Adelaide isn't known as a great place for anything that young people like—[for example] live music, art, sub-culture in general. It's not that Adelaide is too safe but it's more that there is nowhere to make it here when it comes to those areas. So those that are confident about their skills in sub-culture go to see if they can make it in Melbourne or Sydney or [even] New York. If Adelaide wants to keep young people it has to let young people create the type of spaces they want to hang out at and start the type of businesses they want to work in, not for Adelaide to try and guess what they want, or to legislate to make everything that young people want to do safe (and hence less appealing/interesting). Melbourne and Sydney are attractive because they're scary, they're unknown and it's a challenge to make it there. Adelaide...doesn't seem to challenge young people like the other cities do.

Shane, on Facebook as well, said:

I suggest that, Melbourne and Perth have forward planning state governments. They have looked to the future to try and predict what transport infrastructure [they need] and...worked towards that. In SA after 10 years of a state Labor government what have they done? Especially down south, sure they will say they duplicated the Southern Expressway and extended the rail line...but they were...backed into a corner [because they needed the] votes at the last state election. SA needs to become a forward thinking state not a reactionary state always reacting to the problems...We need companies to invest in this great city so that people don't have to leave the state. I love SA but when I travel to Melbourne and see how well they have planned out there city transport infrastructure I get jealous.

Rachel says that there is a lack of incentive to invest in South Australia for either South Australians or external investors:

My limited view is that Government is busy on large infrastructure projects but [my] question [is] whether [this is the] best use of funds.

This person has left for job opportunities and a busier community with a decent plan. Highland Treasures—I am not sure who that is—says:

Let's face it all the money spent on so called 'infrastructure' instead of backing small business and TAFE and Uni positions—no wonder he was kicked out—should have been [done] a lot sooner. We need to be looking at this coming generation and go back to investing in their future and get more trades up and coming and give the tradies the work so [that they] can get [their] apprentices—there is no work in trade industries at the moment.

Daniel says:

When I complete my Urban Planning degree at the end of this year, as much as I would simply love to stay in Adelaide, it is a city that is bogged down in too much bureaucracy and regulation. Things do not get done, the community is often not consulted on major projects in their own backyard, and there is too much fickle political debate.

In terms of career advancement, I need to live somewhere where things get done. Not even interstate [is necessarily possible]—most of my (ambitious) career opportunities are overseas. Adelaide is a beautiful city, and in terms of lifestyle, it is perfect—fantastic in fact. But career wise, we do not have enough diversity. One only has to look at American cities like Detroit that have put all their chips on the one bet—manufacturing, for example (the car industry). [In Adelaide] other than the public service, the service industry, small business and tourism, what other diverse mix of industry do we have here that can sustain the high number of graduates coming from our universities?

Holden and Olympic Dam will not keep people here. It will attract a class of workers, sure, but those who are vibrant and young with ideas...will leave, and live elsewhere, because it is human nature to follow your own path, not your Government's [path].

From Charlie, we have, 'Opportunities are definitely a major factor,' and others seem to agree that opportunities are definitely what young people are looking forward to to keep them here in this state. Another girl, Samantha, has spoken to several young people her own age. She has written a bit of a list here, as follows:

In conversations with young people who have left the state to gain further education or employment the same issues continue to emerge.

The lack of job prospects (particularly in the creative industries such as performing arts, advertising, film and production). There really is a lack of industry in South Australia. This also extends to finance, business and most major executive positions.

Some told me they were disenfranchised with South Australia. Many spoke of its 'backwards thinking' and lack of major initiative. The Nanny State drove them away to put it bluntly. They were sick of being limited.

Many degrees are only offered interstate or are more prestigious [interstate].

Better culture thats more youth friendly and progressive. Particularly live music and arts.

One person said...the public transport system itself in Melbourne made them want to live there.

It saddens me to see our state losing so many of our young, vibrant people, but I am absolutely committed to doing everything I can to turn that around. Hopefully, we will be in government in two years and will be able to start working on that and make Adelaide a place where our young people do want to live, study and raise their family.

Ms BETTISON (Ramsay) (11:11): I oppose the motion put forward by the member for Morialta. It is inevitable that some young South Australians will seek opportunities and experience outside our state. Broadening your life experiences is a key part of being a young adult, and it is not something that a state government should always seek to constrain. Young people like to travel for a variety of reasons. They want to experience different places and cities, either in Australia or across the globe. A number of young people across the developed world perceive this as a rite of passage.

This motion is just another example of the negative approach the opposition has towards South Australia and the economy. The opposition desperately hopes for greater unemployment and lower economic growth.

Members interjecting:

Ms BETTISON: The opposition has no plan, no vision and no ideas for our state and, going by this motion, it has little understanding of the facts. We know that the opposition does not like facts—they get in the way of glib and intellectually shallow arguments.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics interstate migration trends for age and gender statistics go back to 1997. Since 1997, we have seen a steady and significant decline in the number of young people aged 15 to 29 leaving this state. Unlike the opposition, I will put on the record the migration statistics of young people aged 15 to 29 during the period when the opposition was last in government. In 1997, 11,429 young people left the state. In 1998, 10,976 young people left the state.

An honourable member interjecting:

Ms BETTISON: In 1999, 10,859 young people left the state. It got even worse in 2000, with 11,244 young people leaving the state. In 2001, 10,465 young people left the state. Since then, under this Labor state government, we have seen steady and significant falls in the number of young people leaving South Australia. Every year since 2003, fewer than 10,000 young people have left the state. The number of young South Australians moving interstate since 1997 has reduced by 43.7 per cent—

An honourable member interjecting:

Ms BETTISON: —to 7,952.

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Ramsay, we have a point of order. Member for Mitchell.

Mr SIBBONS: Madam Speaker, the opposition were flapping their wings a little earlier about interjections from the member for Croydon, and here we have the member for Morialta—

Mr Gardner interjecting:

Mr SIBBONS: —you know, blah, blah. So, can you please—

The SPEAKER: Thank you, member for Mitchell. The member for Morialta was interjecting during your point of order, so he needs to be very careful. Please respect the new member for Ramsay and listen to her in silence.

Ms BETTISON: Let me reiterate: the number of young South Australians moving interstate since 1997 has reduced by 43.7 per cent to 7,952. This is the lowest level of interstate migration for this age group in the period that these statistics have been collected by the ABS. If the opposition tries to claim that this is somehow worsening, then it is treating this place and the people of South Australia with disdain.

The state government understands that providing opportunities for training and employment is vital to the ongoing success of our state economy and providing jobs for South Australians. Over the past decade labour market conditions in South Australia, a key motivation for moving or staying, have improved considerably. Total employment is at near record levels with around 129,500 jobs created over the past 10 years, and unemployment is at the historically low level of 5.2 per cent, down from the 6.9 per cent recorded a decade ago. Youth unemployment in South Australia is currently the second lowest of the Australian states.

The opposition has also ignored the fact that people are coming to South Australia. South Australia has experienced a sharp increase in net overseas migration since 2003. In 2009 our migrant intake was 17,083, compared with 2,682 in 1998 during the Liberal government. This Labor government has created a quality of education, training and employment opportunities that sees people choosing to settle in South Australia over other states.

The opposition, and in particular the member for Unley, has form with its negative retorts every time the ABS releases its employment statistics. The opposition froths at the mouth every month when South Australia has an unemployment rate of 5 per cent.

Mr Griffiths: Youth unemployment (15 to 19), one in three are looking for a job, Zoe.

Ms BETTISON: Five per cent! I remind this place of the opposition's record when it was last in government. The best monthly unemployment rate under the former Liberal government was 6.9 per cent in February 2001, and this was for one month only.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, the Member for Morphett! You will not display material in this chamber.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: I think the member for Morphett can leave the chamber for five minutes, and you will put that down.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Morphett will go out in silence.

The honourable member for Morphett having withdrawn from the chamber:

Ms BETTISON: The opposition, of course, does not like to mention that their worst month for unemployment was 11.2 per cent in January 1994. I also put on the record that we have had, under the current government, less than 6 per cent unemployment every month since September 2004. The state government is committed to ensuring that South Australia has both the people and the skills base to meet the needs of a changing economy and labour market. That is why the state government has committed the single largest public investment in skills in the state's history ($194 million over six years) to create 100,000 additional training places.

The opposition has no plan, no vision and no ideas, so how is the opposition going to stop young people from leaving the state? Is it a Berlin Wall approach? Will it have guards at every border road, every airport and every border town to stop young people from moving interstate?

Is the opposition going to tell a young mining engineer, 'No, you can't go and get life experience and work in the Pilbara in Western Australia'? Is the opposition going to tell young South Australians that they cannot join the armed forces unless they guarantee that their unit is located in South Australia? Is the opposition going to tell a young football champion, 'No, you can't be in the AFL draft unless drafted by the Adelaide Crows or Port Power'? Is the opposition going to tell young people, 'No, you can't go to the Australian National University in Canberra to do postgraduate research'?

This continuous negativity is nothing but a stunt from a lazy opposition which is bereft of ideas and plans. This Labor government has proudly delivered jobs, training and opportunities to the young people of this state. I ask that members give this shallow motion the attention it deserves and oppose it.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (11:20): I wholeheartedly support the member for Morialta's motion and I know, having had the benefit of sitting next to him for the last five or 10 minutes, that he has been taking great note of what the member for Ramsay has just said and will address those issues in his summing up at the end.

The reality is this is a very serious problem and, regardless of political preferences, we should all be dreadfully concerned about the fact that we are losing lots of young people in South Australia. We face the same issue in regional South Australia: we lose people in regional South Australia to the city and we are losing people from our state across the board to interstate. The member for Morialta's motion is very much about young people moving interstate.

While there are certainly many benefits in migration—and anybody with a name like van Holst Pellekaan would have some sympathy for that—the reality is that this is not about migration and it is not about allowing us to lose our young people and then replacing them with migrants. Regardless of the benefits of migration, we do not want to lose our young people.

This is, again, very much about not losing young people from our state, at the net. Nobody is trying to handcuff them or put them in hobbles. Nobody is trying to say, as the member for Ramsay tried to say, that they should not be allowed to go interstate to study, play football or take a mining job. It is nothing to do with that. What we are saying is that, at the net, we should not be losing people.

Some people will naturally leave South Australia to improve their life in some particular way that is relevant to them, but we should be attracting young people from other states to South Australia so that they can improve their lives in a way that is particularly relevant to them. If we have more people heading interstate than we are gaining people who want to come to South Australia from other states, then there is a problem.

I remember when I played basketball in Tasmania in the late 1980s that this was an issue in Tasmania, and they were really worried about it. But I look at the figures the member for Morialta has provided me with and, certainly from the early 2000s, Tasmania has addressed this issue, so why can't South Australia? This will always be an issue confronting all states by the very nature of the definition of the problem we are looking at. Interstate migration is a competitive issue. We have to make sure that we are on the upside, not the downside. Unless nobody moves anywhere and it is a zero sum game in every state, there will always be some states, at the net, losing young people and some states, at the net, gaining young people. What we have to do is make sure we are at the upside of that equation, and not the downside.

As I said before, this is equally true of regional South Australia. Our government, whichever it is, Liberal or Labor, must provide opportunities that young people find attractive—not the opportunities that the government decides are attractive but opportunities that young people will vote with their feet for, and they will actually move. Of course, I am all about having young people stay in regional South Australia and people who leave being replaced, as I did. I was not born in South Australia and I was not born in regional South Australia, but I moved to Adelaide in the very early 1990s and to regional South Australia in the late 1990s. I am pleased to say I am doing my very best to buck the trend, but this is a very serious issue for all governments.

As the member for Morialta said, the consequences are extreme because it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy or a downward spiral. Once you lose your young people, it is less attractive to young people. We become an old state and a state with less economic and social vibrancy so, by definition, we attract fewer people and become a costly state because we have an ageing population that costs rather than contributes to the economy. Again, as the member for Morialta quite correctly pointed out, the government has recognised and admitted these problems by the very fact that they have SASP targets that address them.

Good on the government for having targets that address them, but shame on the government for not having programs that address how to achieve those targets, and double shame—if that is an appropriate phrase—on the government for retaining the state population targets but, in the last SASP, letting the regional go. There used to be a target in the SASP that addressed retaining regional population, and it has actually been let go, and I think that is an absolute disgrace by this government.

Mr Griffiths: It was 18 per cent.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: And now it is not even addressed; you are quite right. Thank you very much, member for Goyder. This is a serious issue. This is something that any government should address. It is going to become more difficult because our state is in a very difficult financial situation. The state is heading towards in excess of $10 billion of debt, so it is going to be very much a matter of battening down the hatches and trying to armour plate yourself to avoid this sort of scrutiny.

I congratulate the member for Morialta for bringing this issue forward, because if we do not address this issue—if other states gain population and our state loses population—it means that for the next five, 10 or 25 years, we will be in a dreadful situation.

Ms THOMPSON (Reynell) (11:26): I do not intend to delay the house for long, because there are many other matters, but I think there are some things that need to be re-emphasised in terms of what the member for Ramsay said. Very frequently in this parliament, I am just amazed at the lack of corporate history of members opposite. I recognise that only three of them have been in here any earlier than 1997—and I recognise the venerable member for Schubert, who does have considerable corporate history—but again and again I am just astounded by how little members opposite know about what happened in this state before 2002.

Mr Gardner: The State Bank.

Ms THOMPSON: Not only what happened in this state, but what happened in this parliament, and the abominable behaviour that used to occur. I will just incidentally mention that for the opposition (then the Labor Party) to get more than five questions in a day was quite remarkable; however, I digress.

Immediately when any reference is made to before 2002, members opposite have one response: State Bank—and we heard it here from the member for Morialta. They do really need to look a little more comprehensively at what happened during that period. One of the things that is quite clearly on the record is that from 1992, participation in high school absolutely plummeted. Year 12 completion went from something like 92 per cent in 1992 down to around 50 per cent. Why did this happen?

This was happening when I was a member of parliament, representing my electorate of Reynell, which included Morphett Vale, Christie Downs and, at the time, Hackham West. It happened because the Liberal government of the time was giving such negative messages about the future of the state, because all they could do was advance doom and gloom.

Young people believed that there were simply no jobs available for them, so continuing to participate in their education was fruitless. This is not my interpretation of those figures; they are there for all to see. Anybody can check the library records and hear the message of doom and gloom that was delivered frequently by the then premier, Dean Brown, and subsequent premier, John Olsen.

Young people were given no encouragement and no hope about the future of the state. The Liberals were so busy just mucking around, in terms of saying how the Labor government had doomed the state to disaster, that there was no spirit of optimism and no spirit of possibilities for the future. Of course, in that climate, young people would leave the state, and indeed they did. Not only did they fail to complete their education—a legacy which we are still dealing with—but they left the state.

In 1997, as the member for Ramsay said, the figure was 11,429 people. In 1998, the figure was 10,976. In 1999, it was 10,859; in 2000, it was 11,244; and, in 2001, that figure was 10,465. That coincides with this plummeting participation in year 12 studies in this state. Young people who had choices went and young people who did not have choices stayed, and there were incredible rates of unemployment because there are not a lot of jobs around for people who do not have year 12. There were not then and there are not now.

Since then, with a government that wanted to present a positive picture of this state, and a positive picture that things could change, and that took action through investment in the future in education, particularly, and our quest to improve school retention, by our mining explorations, by trying to diversify our economy with the defence establishments that are proceeding, young people got the message of hope.

The need to stay is only for some young people; for some young people it is really quite important that they leave. The member for Ramsay mentioned a number of opportunities that are simply not available, and with a small population not all opportunities will be available. We are, after all, the Australian nation and therefore we expect that some university provisions will be interstate and that some university provisions will be here.

Our viticulture courses, for instance, have always been highly regarded at a national level and, while I do not have the figures to hand, I am quite confident in saying that people come from interstate—young people and older people—to study in South Australia. That is one of the reasons for focusing, as this government has, on making this the university capital, making courses available, particularly through international institutions, that are not available elsewhere.

It is important that some of our young people move interstate, just as some of our older people do, and take opportunities that are not available here. Many of those young people come back to South Australia. Certainly, amongst my own acquaintances that has been the case, where young people have gained skills interstate or overseas and come back and contributed greatly to this state. For instance in our public sector I can think of several people—and I will not name them—who have had very high-level experience overseas and who have come back and made that contribution to South Australia. It is a great asset for us that our young people do so frequently come back with greatly enhanced experience.

From my discussions with young people of my acquaintance, some of the reasons for their leaving have nothing to do with jobs; they just want a bigger lifestyle. There is no way that a population of 1.5 million will have the same opportunities as a population of nearly 5 million. Sydney is glitz and glam, lights and fluff; I like visiting but I do not like to live there. I do not like to visit it for all that long really, but it certainly offers different attractions. Some young people want that.

To make sure that there is a genuine choice, this government is emphasising developing or enhancing Adelaide as a vibrant capital city. Most of the initiatives taken so far to provide cultural capital and activities have come under the Labor government, but I acknowledge that some have come under the Liberal government. The Tour Down Under was an excellent initiative by former minister for recreation and sport Joan Hall—often dumped on, of course, by members opposite because their history means that they do not actually remember that it was a Liberal minister who initiated it.

A range of activities contributes to Adelaide being a more vibrant city, but there is a further range of activities proposed, and I urge members opposite, if they think there is a problem with young people leaving our city, to get on board and back every one of the government's initiatives to enhance our reputation as a vibrant city. Value our young people, whether they stay here or go away, and create an atmosphere that welcomes them back with the extra knowledge and life experience they have. Enable them to participate in all the activities our wonderful land of Australia offers them, whether here or interstate—but just make sure that we are a place that gives them a genuine choice of whether they want to stay here or spend a bit of time overseas.

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (11:34): I rise today to support the motion from the member for Morialta. I congratulate him on his well-researched and well-presented contribution and on highlighting this particularly complex issue. I guess there is no single reason for and no single solution to preventing the young people of this state going elsewhere to—in the words of the member for Morialta—pursue education, career and lifestyle. The three essentially go hand in hand. As I said, there is no single reason, no single solution, but certainly there is a problem. It is a problem for our young people which becomes a problem for our whole state.

I would like to follow up on a few comments made by the member for Stuart, when he talked about the trend also being evident in regional and country South Australia. It is not just a trend that is evident in metropolitan Adelaide, it is right across the state. If anything, the trend of young people moving on to pursue education, career and lifestyle is doubly evident, in fact.

It actually becomes a social issue because often it is young women who move from a particular district to pursue careers in particular—not so much education and lifestyle—purely and simply because jobs are not available. They are no longer available for a whole host of reasons but particularly because of the trend towards the centralisation of services—government services in particular, but also business services. Services that once existed in country towns are moved to the bigger cities. The trend, I am fully aware, is for those services to sometimes move out of Adelaide to the Eastern States.

It causes a dilemma when young women move away. It leaves a significant number of young men, particularly in the country, with limited social opportunities. I could walk into any one of the small country pubs in my electorate on a Friday or Saturday night and the young men will outnumber the young ladies significantly.

Mr Venning: Wirrulla Wants a Wife.

Mr TRELOAR: Wirrulla Wants a Wife. I thank the member for Schubert for reminding me of that, because I need to mention and congratulate the organisers of the recently held (last long weekend, in fact) Wirrulla Wants a Wife social function, where all the single people around Eyre Peninsula—and often they are young men—were invited to Wirrulla, which is a small town about 110 kilometres east of Ceduna. A busload of young ladies came from the city, from Adelaide, to enjoy the hospitality of the country for a whole weekend.

I have not heard too much about it since but, no doubt, they all enjoyed themselves immensely and enjoyed the opportunity for some social interaction. This is one way of addressing the issue of imbalance that I am attempting to highlight.

I spoke about the centralisation of government services as well as business services. I do not mean to dwell on the past, but there was a time—and I will give you an example—when young nurses were trained in country hospitals. It might seem rather innocuous, but now all nurses are required to train in Adelaide, at a training hospital, or gain their degree at university. The unintended consequences of this is that they leave: they leave their home, their place of birth, and often do not return. Quite simply it is about opportunities. It is about job opportunities, it is about career opportunities, and it is also about educational opportunities.

I believe that one of the basic roles of government is to provide a framework in which business can operate effectively. Should the Labor government be prepared to do that, business would flourish. The current regime of regulation, red tape, high taxes and a burgeoning bureaucracy is quite simply a disincentive to business to operate in this state. If business is flourishing, all else will follow. It is as simple as that. As I said, under the current regime business is finding it very difficult to operate effectively and flourish in this state. As a result, that in itself is limiting the opportunities for young people, for careers and for lifestyle as well. I urge the government to reconsider their approach to tax, regulation and red tape.

I genuinely believe that if business flourishes all else follows, and issues such as the ones raised by the member for Morialta will, in effect, resolve themselves. South Australia once again will become a vibrant hive of activity, it will be an attractive place to live, it will be a good place to do business, and people will want to be here.

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (11:41): I rise to support the member for Morialta and his motion. As the youngest member in this house he deserves to be listened to. Quite clearly, he has done the academic work required to put up his motion, with copious amounts of figures. To be targeted by members opposite I thought was most unfair. The fact that the member for Ramsay put out the government's edict that they were not going to support the motion is disappointing. They may care to rethink that and perhaps come back on another day and realise the error of their ways.

The issue of young people leaving the state is critical. It was pointed out, I think, by the member for Reynell—and she was right on this—that we are a little state. It was also pointed out by the member for Flinders (and I would like to endorse his remarks) that young people are leaving the bush.

It is frightening to see the number of young people leaving the bush. There are places like Kimba, where the joke was that the last one to leave turned out the lights. I think that is a sad sign of where we are going in this state and in this country that young people feel that they have to leave for the bright lights or for academic reasons.

My wife did all her nurse training in the local hospital and occasionally went to Adelaide to do courses. Now all training is in Adelaide; it is ridiculous. I know we are talking about young people leaving the state, but I am referring to them leaving the bush as well. I was reading a few minutes ago in the Stock Journal about the Wirrulla Wants a Wife competition they had recently, which was highly successful. Once upon a time, it was true—and it is probably still true to some extent—that if you lived in the country you looked at the next intake of schoolteachers or nurses who provided companionship for life for many people.

However, in this case we are talking about people leaving the state. The issue of medicine is one example. Many people who want to do medicine go interstate because they simply cannot get into courses in South Australia, and on many occasions they do not come back.

I know that the member for Morialta is taking this extremely seriously. The member for Morialta will be here for many, many years to come. He is a young man now. He will not go the way of his predecessor. He is a diligent, hardworking and talented member and he has a long way to go in the Liberal Party, I am sure. Advancing causes such—

Mr Gardner interjecting:

Mr PENGILLY: Yes, I know I'm putting your weights up. I know that in advancing the issue of young people leaving the state, it is a passion and commitment that he has, and I give him great credit for that. I would like to think that the government would reconsider this matter and support him. It is critical that we keep our young people in the state for the future. The number of baby boomers of my vintage who will retire over the next five to 10 years is going to be amazing, and young people are the future of the state. I have great pleasure in supporting the motion.

Mrs VLAHOS (Taylor) (11:45): I would like to speak on this matter from a personal perspective. The member for Stuart spoke very briefly about his trail to South Australia, and I would like to talk about mine. I came here in 1992 when I was in my mid-20s and when I arrived I had a job to come to. I loved this state and I stayed. At the same time, I had lived in many states before I settled in this state and I had gathered lots of experience along the way.

Many people travel around our nation and gather experience, education and life experiences that they bring to South Australia. The member for Reynell spoke about that earlier. It is the reason that we are a nation. Many people of my age, in their late 30s and 40s, are now coming back to South Australia, having secured that life experience and further management experience, both in the public and private sector. People do not have solely a private sector career or solely a public sector career. Some members opposite may suggest that people do, but I think that is a very narrow-minded view of the way society works.

People cross over and use their experiences in a variety of ways. People come back to our state when they are prepared to take middle and senior management positions, having taken graduate employment opportunities both in our state and abroad. They have gone away and got that experience—we live in a global community—and they come back here when they want to settle. They see the quality of life and they want some of the vibrancy that the member for Reynell spoke about before, to which this government is working very steadily and solidly with the Adelaide City Council to secure for this city, and they are settling here again.

I think the member for Morialta is providing a very shallow perspective of this. The member for Ramsay highlighted some of the statistical data that proved how bad things were when I arrived in the mid-nineties because the then government was not encouraging or doing anything active to keep people in this state. When the former member for Port Adelaide, Kevin Foley, was here, he went across to Sydney and spoke with the graduates I am speaking about who are now senior managers and coming back to our state. He was bringing them back, and we were working with the business community to do that. We continue to do those things and this state is growing and going forward in leaps and bounds, which it never did during the time I was in my 20s under a Liberal government regime.

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg) (11:47): It is with pleasure that I rise to support this motion, and the member for Morialta, in a very significant issue that confronts South Australia. The situation for me is very simple. My family first came here in 1836, my grandchildren are eighth generation, and we are committed South Australians. I agree with other speakers who say that there is great merit in taking up opportunities to travel and even to reside in other parts of the world and Australia for the purposes of gaining great experience and bringing the benefits of that experience back to South Australia. I have no problem with that at all.

The problem with the argument that that is, in some way, a rebuttal of the thousands (net) of young people who leave this state, is quite inadequate. The reason is this: we take out the many thousands who leave the state, some who come back, and the net is still, on average over the past 10 years, about 3,000. That is the problem. We encourage people to travel, to learn and bring back the benefits for South Australia—this has happened with one of my own sons, he lived overseas, married and has children back here in South Australia. That is terrific. Both he and his wife are fantastic contributors to the economy and social fabric of this state. There is no question about that.

The thousands we lose each year are an acute problem for us because we also have a very significant aged population in South Australia. Except in one category where Tasmania outnumber us, our profile is quite old, and we are getting older quicker. The difficulty is that we need to have an active and healthy workforce to continue to provide services for those who go into a period of frailty or ill health, particularly aged people. In addition to that, I think this state still has the highest profile of disabled people in Australia, based on those receiving the disability pension. Again, that raises a question of the necessary workforce, income generated, and service providers for those who are in need. So, it is a critical issue.

If we add to that the opportunities that we have heard about from this government of a future redevelopment or expansion of mining and defence opportunities, etc.—all of which are still out there but have been promised—clearly we need a workforce to go with it. I remember, not long after coming into this place, a major closure of industry in South Australia and, within weeks, the workforce had scrambled across the border and into Western Australia. The South Australian government had dropped the ball on making sure that these people were retrained and given opportunities to get back into the workforce and, of course, Western Australia got smart, gave them tickets to Western Australia, and we lost them. It is important that the government understands that they must do more than just television commercials.

In the early years when I came into the parliament, I had the privilege of representing the opposition on population. I asked minister Maywald and minister Foley from time to time about what they were doing to deal with this issue of the net number of young people leaving this state and the huge economic and social impact it had on our state's future prosperity and advancement. Minister Maywald had created some new TV program which was going to be instrumental in bringing these people back to South Australia and, when I asked her questions about the review of that, and whether it was effective because the numbers seemed to be worsening during her regime—

The Hon. R.B. Such: Was it called 'Not Packed to the Rafters'?

Ms CHAPMAN: That's right—'Not Back to South Australia.' Her answer was, 'Yes, we are doing some reviews. We can't really find out why people are leaving because we don't ask them.' You would think that they would have done some assessments about why people were leaving, especially when we had very positive and useful decisions by the former federal government which had designated South Australia, along with Tasmania, as destinations which attracted a much lower threshold for immigration.

Young families were coming to South Australia and, within a very short period, they were packing up and moving to Sydney or Melbourne or elsewhere in Australia, particularly to Queensland at that stage, which four or five years ago had a net increase of 18,000 people a year—a net increase—so, we knew where they were moving to. In any event, that was her answer.

I am pleased to advise the house that minister Foley was a little more pragmatic. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on this commercial, which had no proper assessment or review, and clearly was not working in any event by the numbers that were continuing to exodus out of the state, and his view was, 'We will scrap it.'

I was pleased to hear that, because I thought the hundreds of thousands of dollars could surely be used to help consider how we might do some things: for example, subsidise siblings of international students who came to South Australia to undertake courses that we needed; provide support for young people to invest in South Australia; help with house deposits, subsidise stamp duty.

All sorts of things were discussed at that stage, but he was a little more pragmatic, and he said, 'I agree, it's hopeless, it hasn't worked, I'm going to scrap it.' The next year I read in estimates, post the Foley era, that it is still there. It is still soaking up hundreds of thousands of dollars and it still does not work, and that is the sort of priority the government gives this issue, as though they are going to resolve this problem with a television commercial.

I ask the government, after 10 years under this new regime, that it understands that this is a serious problem and that it does not dismiss it as some kind of superficial problem in the mind of the member for Morialta. This is a serious problem. It has been getting worse in the last 10 years. We need to address this issue and address it quickly, otherwise the very future of this state, the very workforce and service providers that will keep this community alive will have exodus and will give no benefit for the—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Exodus is not a verb: it's a noun.

Ms CHAPMAN: To ensure that those who do come here and migrate to our state have a good reason to stay.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: They could be part of an exodus but they don't exodus.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Croydon—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, I'm not going to chuck you out; that's what you want.

Ms Chapman: Oh, please do.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: You are staying here, I can assure you. In fact, anybody on the government side who gets chucked out has to do twice the time after. Member for Hammond.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (11:55): Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I think that was a fantastic ruling you just made. I rise to support the member for Morialta's motion that this house condemns the state government for its 10 years of failure to stem the extraordinary flow of young people leaving South Australia for study, career and lifestyle opportunities interstate.

The simple fact is that you have to promote the right business environment so that businesses have a reason to keep young people in this state and employ young people in this state. So often we see major contracts go out of this state, whether they be roadworks projects, desalination plant projects or even things that affect one of the operators in my electorate, Moore Engineering, with the building of emergency service vehicles in the form of fire trucks.

We see contracts continually given to interstate based companies. In the case of fire trucks, many of these are defective. I know of two that were built in the last couple of years that had to go to Moore Engineering in Murray Bridge to be completely redone. They were just a mess: brand-new trucks; one delivered to the West Coast and one to Meningie had to go in for a complete revamp to tidy up lockers that would not shut and things falling off. They were just completely unsafe for our CFS volunteers to operate. This is where Moore Engineering keeps picking up work. Some of the only work they pick up from the state government is fixing up all the messes from other contracts.

It is to be noted that this company picks up work from mining sites in Western Australia for emergency services vehicles and from other interstate government or private bodies to make their vehicles because it is recognised for its fine workmanship. However, once again, this government will not promote local business in this state even when we have a company that could employ more young people and keep them in this state and have a high level of employment.

Another thing that does not help in keeping young people in this state, and it affects an electorate like mine, is that there is no public housing for people like police officers, schoolteachers or other public occupations within 100 kilometres of the city. What incentive is there for these people to come out to those areas?

Being a country person, I look at 100 kilometres as being nothing. In fact, I have often said about the distance from Coomandook where I live (which is about 140 kilometres from Adelaide) that it is always further from Adelaide to Coomandook than Coomandook to Adelaide. I say that because people in Adelaide seem to think it is so far to come out to where I live. As other country members know, it is just something we do. We drive those distances.

Here we are again with this government not encouraging people to come and work in the regions, because there is no housing. This goes right out to Tailem Bend, and it affects the education sector in my electorate, like the schools in Coomandook which my boys attend, and also Coonalpyn a little further down the road, because teachers want to come and live in a place like Tailem Bend but they cannot get housing.

There is no incentive. It is not just young people; I was talking to a member of the police force last night about who is going to head up the local service area when the new Murray Bridge police station is built. I do acknowledge that that police station is being built under this government, but where will the head of the local service area be based? Well, they cannot offer them housing so they could be based at Henley Beach. Who knows. How ridiculous is that, when you want to have these people on call.

This reflects on what I call our fairly close electorates—this 100-kilometre limit. It affects the areas of the member for Goyder and the member for Schubert—I am sure it also affects his electorate. There is absolutely no incentive for people to come out into our areas. This is a major factor in depopulating regional areas of this state. Certainly I acknowledge the member for Morialta's motion. People are not just leaving the city but they are also leaving the country in droves because they are given no incentive to stay or to be attracted to what I call the virtual suburban regional areas.

We end up with schools battling to get staff, we end up with healthcare needs that are not met, and we also end up with issues like the safety of our citizens and being able to get the appropriate police numbers in place. A lot of this is because we do live in the highest taxed state in the nation. People do not want to invest here, whether it be in property or business, and it is a fact. There are plenty of stories I keep hearing day by day where people have decided it is just too hard.

They do not want to pay all the stamp duties, the property taxes, the payroll taxes and land tax. They just go and invest somewhere else. They go to Queensland. They are out of here, and they are out of here in droves and taking millions of dollars with them and reinvesting them elsewhere. If you do not have these kinds of people who have the ability to invest in not just private property but also in business you drive the youth away, because these people would employ the youth if they thought it was the right state to operate in and the right business environment—just the total package that gave them an incentive to stay here.

But these people see the light. They say, 'How can we put up with this 10 years of Labor mess?' They say, 'No. We've had enough. We're out of here,' and I do not blame them. I agree with the member for Morialta and condemn the state government for what it has done to the youth of this state in not doing anything for them in the last 10 years.

Mr GARDNER (Morialta) (12:02): I would like to thank the members for Kavel, Adelaide, Stuart, Flinders, Finniss, Bragg, Hammond, Ramsay, Reynell and Taylor for taking an interest in this issue and making contributions. It was very important to have this debate this morning because the debate about the flow of young people leaving South Australia for study, career and lifestyle opportunities interstate really defines the sort of state we want to be in the future, what the make-up of our population is going to be 10 or 20 years from now and what sorts of things we want South Australia to do and how we want South Australia to look.

I just want to make a few comments in response to the contribution by the lead government speaker who quoted some statistics selectively. I just want to bring to the attention of the house that the figures she talked about were total figures from 1997 to 2001 of people leaving South Australia. Those were, of course, different to the net figures I used because on this side of the house we believe that net figures are important. It is like if you are looking at a budget—you do not just look at how much revenue is coming in, you also compare it to how much you are spending.

From the government's point of view, they might say, 'Revenue has gone up from $8 billion to $16 billion over the last 10 years. Isn't that wonderful?' But if you are spending more than that then you end up with significant deficit. This is the sort of thing that we on this side of the house notice. We look at the net figures, but, either way, all these figures actually go back to 1980. You can look at the ABS website and you can see quarter by quarter, right back to 1980. It made me wonder, 'Why is she using the 1997 figures rather than the 1993 figures if she wants to paint a picture of the last Liberal government?' Of course, we all know that the answer to that is that they were the figures that suited her argument, and the same goes for the use of gross figures rather than net figures.

She also made the point that in the lifetime of this Labor government the gross figures for net interstate departures from South Australia have never reached five figures, such as they were in the 1990s. I am not sure which figures she was looking at, but I was looking at the ABS figures last night, which had well over 10,000 people leaving South Australia, on a gross basis, in the 2010-11 year. So, either she is not up to date with her figures or she is looking at the wrong set, and she is certainly wrong to use gross rather than net figures anyway.

She also used unemployment figures to point out that unemployment was really high in January 1994 under the last Liberal government. I thought this was an extraordinary figure to quote. She may not be aware of this, but in December 1993, one month before the figure she quoted, there was an election at which the Labor Party only saw 10 members get re-elected to the parliament. That was because the South Australian people had seen what the Labor government had done and completely rejected them. To say that anyone other than the former Labor government was responsible for the unemployment figures in January 1994 really does not bear belief.

The only other issue that the government raised in relation to this was what on the surface appeared to be a reasonable point from the member for Taylor. She said, 'Yes, people leave, but then they come back,' particularly in people of her generation. The net figures that I quoted before of people leaving South Australia were from the age of 20 to 34, but perhaps I could bring to the house's attention that the average over the last 10 years of net interstate migration for 35 to 39 year olds was 237 people leaving South Australia, for 40 to 44 year olds it was 206, and for 45 to 49 year olds it was 161. In every age group more people are leaving South Australia than are coming back to South Australia, and it is particularly pronounced in that youth age group of 20 to 34 years old.

As many members have said, on this side and that side, it is great for people to get experience, but the key is to get them back. It is easier to do that if you can get them before they have children or before their children are in school, particularly. To do that, you need to make sure that the job environment is conducive.

In using the net figures as we have, we are comparing South Australia to all of the other states on a level playing field, and every state except for New South Wales is doing better than us at this. That is because we are the highest taxed state in Australia and because we have the worst environment for businesses or individuals to invest money in South Australia and expect a return, and to provide those jobs that will provide the career opportunities for young people to come back to South Australia or, preferably, for young people from other states to decide that they want to have their education, their career, their lifestyle and their family here in South Australia. That is what we should be looking for as a parliament, and I urge the house to support this motion.

The house divided on the motion:

AYES (16)
Chapman, V.A. Evans, I.F. Gardner, J.A.W. (teller)
Goldsworthy, M.R. Griffiths, S.P. Hamilton-Smith, M.L.J.
Marshall, S.S. McFetridge, D. Pederick, A.S.
Pisoni, D.G. Sanderson, R. Treloar, P.A.
van Holst Pellekaan, D.C. Venning, I.H. Whetstone, T.J.
Williams, M.R.
NOES (22)
Atkinson, M.J. Bedford, F.E. Bettison. Z.L. (teller)
Bignell, L.W. Caica, P. Close, S.E.
Fox, C.C. Geraghty, R.K. Hill, J.D.
Kenyon, T.R. Key, S.W. Koutsantonis, A.
O'Brien, M.F. Piccolo, T. Portolesi, G.
Rankine, J.M. Rau, J.R. Sibbons, A.L.
Snelling, J.J. Thompson, M.G. Vlahos, L.A.
Wright, M.J.
PAIRS (4)
Pengilly, M. Odenwalder, L.K.
Redmond, I.M. Weatherill, J.W.

Majority of 6 for the noes.

Motion thus negatived.

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