House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-10-30 Daily Xml

Contents

Question Time

STATE ECONOMY

Mr MARSHALL (Norwood—Leader of the Opposition) (14:02): My question is to the Premier. Is the Premier concerned that, in its latest report, Deloitte Access Economics forecasts that over the next four years the state economy will grow at half the rate forecast by the state budget?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier, Treasurer, Minister for State Development, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for the Arts) (14:02): What I am very pleased about is that, in Deloitte's analysis about the big trends that are going to affect the future economic growth of this country, South Australia is incredibly well placed to take advantage of them. Consider each of the matters they identified: education services, incredibly well placed; the oil and gas sector, incredibly well placed; the agribusiness sector, incredibly well placed; the tourism sector, incredibly well placed.

The wealth generation businesses is an area where we are not as heavily engaged as some of the Eastern States. Nevertheless, in four of the five areas in the top series of those parts of the economy that Deloitte estimates will be the strongest growing areas of the national economy over the coming decade, South Australia has a special and important place in those particular areas.

It vindicates the decisions that we took in our economic statement released in March, to focus on the areas of endeavour that we chose—a vibrant city; making sure that we share the benefits of the mining boom with the whole of the South Australian community; our clean, green food taken from a healthy and clean environment; and, of course, our advanced manufacturing push. All of these are absolutely crucial sectors of our economy for growth in the future. They are the same areas of endeavour that Deloitte believes are going to be the strongest areas of our economy, so we are very pleased to rely upon the analysis that Deloitte puts out there in the public sphere about the strength of economies in this country.

Mr MARSHALL: Supplementary, sir.

The SPEAKER: A supplementary, but before it is asked, I call the member for—

An honourable member: Heysen.

The SPEAKER: Thank you for that—to order.