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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-09-10 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

State Liberal Government

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (15:13): I welcome the opportunity to be able to address the parliament on our first day back after a substantial break because it has been an eventful few weeks, whether the government likes it or not. I do not think there is much dispute in the community that the government is having a pretty rough time of it. It is worth just reflecting on some of the stories that the South Australian community have had to consume since the parliament last met.

They have seen their sub jobs that we were promised under attack. They have seen potentially 1,100 jobs being cut from our public hospital system, including nurses and doctors. We see that the government are clearly going to fall well and truly short of their own 20,000 new apprenticeships target. We have seen hospital ramping at the worst levels in decades. We have seen the government announce their intention to privatise the state's own backup generators, and all the while they continue their disastrous train privatisation plans.

Concerningly, we have seen very bad economic news, not least of which was that state final demand has contracted—or gone backwards—for two consecutive quarters. According to the Premier, this meets his own test of the state going into recession. Most concerning was the rather solemn news regarding the state's unemployment rate, which came out a few weeks ago.

This government has caused a surge in the number of South Australians who are currently unemployed. Today, 13,000 more South Australians are unemployed than at the time of the last state election. An additional 13,000 people are trying to work out how they are going to put food on the table for their families and their children. It is quite a tragic proposition.

The state's unemployment rate is now 6.9 per cent. It is a surge in unemployment. It means that South Australia now has the highest unemployment rate in the commonwealth by some way. That is a real statistic. That is not in dispute. It is not some fabrication; it is a genuine measure of the pain that households in this state are currently feeling.

The most alarming thing for me was the response by the Premier when he was asked about that situation. When the Premier was asked whether there was a problem, his response was, 'None whatsoever.' Try telling that to the families who are sitting at home as we speak trying to find a job, trying to work out how they are going to pay the bills and how they are going to make sure their children are provided for when they do not have an income. To them, it is not 'no problem whatsoever': it is a very real problem. If we have a Premier who refuses to acknowledge the problem that exists, then we have a lot of pain coming our way.

What South Australians really need is a Premier who not just acknowledges that the problem exists but who is actually willing to do something about it with well thought-out economic policy. This brings me to the land tax measure: the central policy plank for this Premier in the most recent state budget. This is a classic example not of considered policy reform as the Premier would like to have us believe but of policy on the run.

There was a land tax announced in last year's state budget that this opposition was willing to see sail through the parliament. That was quickly revised in this year's state budget, approximately nine months later. Here we are, three months after that, with yet another version of a land tax policy. For those families sitting at home who currently do not have jobs, how can they have confidence in the future of this state when they have a Premier who denies that their problem exists? More concerningly, we have a Premier who is making up economic policy as he goes along.

We understand that the Premier does not even show up to the budget cabinet committee meetings. We understand that we have a Premier who is completely abdicating his responsibility on economic policy to a Treasurer who, as we understand, is not going to be around in 2½ years. This government is not taking seriously its extraordinary responsibility to the men, women and working families of this state to ensure that they can provide for their families by ensuring there is a cogent, well thought-out, sustainable, long-term economic plan, as distinct from policy on the run which is destined to fail.

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