House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-09-25 Daily Xml

Contents

Question Time

Business Confidence

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:07): My question is to the Premier. Does the Premier take responsibility for business confidence plummeting in the state's economy according to the BDO State Business Survey released this morning?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:07): Obviously, we take any advice from the business sector very seriously. We look at the results of the BDO survey, which was taken in the month of August before we released our full land tax package. It was a survey of I think 177 firms in South Australia of the 140,000 small businesses in South Australia.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, members on my left!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: It does provide some commentary, which we are happy to look at, but it does contrast with surveys also conducted around that time by the National Australia Bank, by BankSA and by ANZ that still say that—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: The ANZ Stateometer made it very clear that we were the only state in the entire country which has above-trend growth accelerating and so, whilst that—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —is good news, there is plenty of work to be done and that's precisely what we are up for on this side of the chamber. We are going to be working every single day. We are not going to be talking down the state. Some people are now unfairly calling the Leader of the Opposition 'Pessimistic Pete'. We prefer just to get on with it on this side of the house.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Point of order.

The SPEAKER: Premier, there is a point of order. The point of order, member for West Torrens, is for debate?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: How about name-calling, sir?

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Point of order, sir.

The SPEAKER: There is a point of order on the point of order.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: It is, sir. Speaker Atkinson made it very clear that there is an order for which points of order may be taken, and he went so far as to throw members out for not obliging with that.

The SPEAKER: For much worse than I would, absolutely.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Or less, yes.

The Hon. S.C. Mullighan: Is there a standing order or just a history lesson?

The SPEAKER: Yes, yes. I am going to deal with this, member for Lee. Members on my left and right are, quite frankly, as guilty as each other. I am going to ask that the decorum please settle down. I am going to call to order a number of members on my left and right: the members for Playford, Light, Lee, Ramsay, West Torrens, Mawson, Hurtle Vale, the member for Hammond and the Minister for Education.

I ask that the temperature drop just a little bit. I would like to hear the questions and the answers clearly. I believe that the Premier made a good attempt to stick to the substance of the question. Where he starts referring to members in such a way—I won't repeat the term—I think that is arguably a little bit of a deviation, and I ask him to come back to the substance of the question. He has finished his answer. Leader.