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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
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State Economy

Mr DULUK (Waite) (14:18): My question is to the Premier. Will the Premier update the house on how initiatives in the government's 100-day plan will help create jobs and grow the South Australian economy?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:18): I thank the member for Waite for his question. His question is about how we are going to grow the size of the economy, something which is very important to us because we know, we realise on this side of the house, that if we grow the economy we will create more jobs. If we create more jobs, we will, most importantly, keep our next generation here in South Australia.

I will outline to the house some of the important initiatives that we have contained within our 100-day plan to grow our economy here in South Australia. The first thing that I would like to talk about is our plan to reduce payroll tax on small business in South Australia. We have made a commitment that we will remove all payroll tax on any small business in South Australia with an annual payroll of up to $1.5 million.

At the moment, payroll tax is a massive burden. It's a tax on jobs. People say it's a tax on jobs because that is precisely what it is. We want to put more money back into the tills of small businesses right across South Australia. We are very confident that they will use this money to invest, grow their business, put more stock in place and employ more people in South Australia. This is an important initiative and one that will come into effect on 1 January next year.

But it's not just that commitment. We made that commitment to provide payroll tax relief for businesses up to $1.5 million per year, but I make this commitment to the parliament: as our economy grows and we increase revenue into our state, I will use that additional money to offer further tax relief here in South Australia. We on this side of the house want to remove that burden, release that burden and ease that burden on the productive component of our economy because we know that, if this happens, those people employed in the private sector and those people who own businesses in the private sector will work with us to grow the size of our economy.

One of the other things that is absolutely critical, which is contained within our 100-day plan to grow our economy and to create more jobs, is of course creating more apprentices and trainees here in South Australia. Under the previous government, we saw a massive reduction in the number of apprentices and trainees in training here in South Australia.

In fact, when I look at some of the statistics, I am sure you will be very interested to note that there were just 14,725 apprentices and trainees in training in South Australia at the end of last year. This might sound like a large number—14,725 apprentices and trainees—but I just thought I would take a look at what it was previously. I will go back to the end of 2013, which was not that long ago, less than five years ago. The number was over double. There were in excess of 30,000 apprentices and trainees here in South Australia, so you see that the number of people in training in South Australia under the previous government was in freefall.

We already had skill shortages emerging right across South Australia in terms of technical skills. This would have been exacerbated further as new naval shipbuilding construction began at Osborne to the point where we would have a crisis. The new government hasn't let a crisis occur. We have intervened. We have put $100 million of state money on the table and, of course, we now have an $87 million commitment from the federal government so that we can remove that massive impediment.

Sir, as you would be aware, come 1 July, which is not long to wait—less than two weeks—we will be putting through our emergency services levy cuts, which will put more money back into the pockets of every single household and business in South Australia so they can spend their own money, grow the economy and create more jobs here in our great state of South Australia.

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