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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-11-13 Daily Xml
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Job Creation

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:40): My question is to the Premier. Is the government's announcement today of 5,000 new jobs in addition to the government's 2010 promise of 100,000 new jobs by 2016?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier) (14:41): I thank the honourable member for his question. Today what we did is we launched the second of the 10 economic priorities for South Australia and set out in more detail not only the reason why we chose that as our focus (this one on unlocking the potential of our mining and energy industry), but also within that document we set out some of the success stories that we've already achieved, some of the initiatives that we are pursuing but, importantly, we set out objectives about where we want to be as a state in three years' time. So, before the next election we are setting out for ourselves published goals about what we want to achieve for South Australia.

These are ambitious goals. They have a clear time line in relation to them. We have no doubt that we will be held to account for those commitments. One of the commitments, amongst a number that exist in relation to the mining industry, is the commitment for the creation of an additional 5,000 jobs in that sector. There is no doubt that it is going to be a stretch be able to achieve that.

Ms REDMOND: Point of order. The question was about whether the 5,000 jobs announcement was in addition to the 100,000 jobs promised in 2010 and thus far the Premier has gone nowhere near even touching on an answer to that question.

The SPEAKER: I will listen carefully to see if the Premier joins up his remarks.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: If the member listened carefully she would realise that it is a much more specific and detailed analysis of a sector of the economy, rather than an estimate of what we seek to achieve across the whole of our economy.

Ms Redmond: You promised 100,000 jobs.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Well, no; I will go to that in a moment, Mr Speaker. The 5,000 commitment that we have made in relation to the mining and energy sector is where we expect to be in 2017. That is a specific commitment that we are putting in place which we will be judged against before the next election. The truth is that the commitment of the creation of 100,000 jobs was given in the 2010 election and it wasn't a commitment that could be judged before the 2014 election because the time line was, indeed, stretched beyond the 2014 election. We are doing something—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Unley is warned and the member for Heysen is warned for a second time.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: We are doing something much more accountable and much braver than those opposite would ever have dreamt about doing. We are putting in place a target that exists which can be judged before the next election.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Stuart is called to order.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: If those opposite want to talk about the 100,000 job target, I am more than happy to do that. The 100,000 job target was announced in 2010, and it was a stretch target. It was judged to be a target we would seek to achieve by 2016. There was the small matter of the global financial crisis and the way in which that intervened—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: No, it wasn't. Unless they rewrite history, at that point we were in the full blush of the stimulus that was occurring at a state and a national level. Everybody had believed that we had managed to get through the global financial crisis without having seen the wash-over effects on the international economy which emerged. So, that has been a difficult challenge for us, there is no doubt about that. Our objectives on this side of the parliament have always been to create jobs, first and foremost, and that is why we are the only party with a detailed and clear plan for the future to create jobs.

Ms Sanderson interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Adelaide is called to order, and the Minister for Education will not make gestures in response to the opposition. The leader.

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