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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-10-27 Daily Xml
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South Australian Economy

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (15:00): Supplementary, sir: given the Premier's comments that it is not worth talking about individual statistics, would he care to comment on CommSec's summary, which is that South Australia has seventh spot on the economic performance rankings but Tasmania, which is in eighth spot, is showing better momentum?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier) (15:00): This is no more than repeating the nature of the challenge. I have said before in this place—and we have just had a briefing from the ANZ chief economist, and he makes the point—that the South Australian economy is particularly affected by high exchange rates. We have only had 18 months of relatively—

Mr van Holst Pellekaan interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Stuart is on two warnings.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: The South Australian economy is particularly susceptible because it is an exchange rate-sensitive economy to high exchange rates. The truth is it has been a perfect storm. During that period of rapid growth in our resources sector, driven largely by Chinese demand, unfortunately for the South Australian economy a number of our large resource projects were unable to get away during that window of opportunity.

So, we had the detriment of not getting the mining boom investment, but we got the mining boom detriment because of the high exchange rate. That has a particular effect on an economy which is exchange rate-sensitive, but all that is to describe the nature of the challenge. We have a plan. We have an economic plan which has 10 priorities. We are implementing that plan.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: We would be grateful if we could hear either an alternative plan, or some elaboration of our plan, if you cannot think of one yourself. That would assist and advance the interests of South Australia. I think, frankly, this line of questioning and the general approach of the opposition is missing the mood of the age, which is that people want to see positive solutions to the great challenges that we face.

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