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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-04-28 Daily Xml
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Small Business Grants

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee) (14:42): My question is to the Premier. Given grants are already being paid, why are applications open until 1 June?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:43): I don't really understand the question—why the Labor Party would want to be stopping people from applying for a government relief package.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, leader!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: Why are they still open if you're starting to pay the money? Well, we are really keen to—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Minister for Environment!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —get money into the hands of people who desperately need it in South Australia. I would have thought that was pretty obvious. People are hurting in South Australia. They are hurting really hard from this coronavirus and we're keen to get that money to them. Some people will still have to determine their eligibility, and this will be a function of whether or not they have seen a reduction in their revenue to that 30 per cent level, which is the acceptable level that has been agreed on at the national cabinet level for the access to the JobKeeper package, and we are using that same criteria here in South Australia.

So I presume that some people would not have been in a position to determine that at this stage, and there are some complexities around the eligibility of types of businesses that don't have very equal revenue month-by-month receipts. Some people have very lumpy receipts and so there are different ways that they can prove that. That has been the experience at the federal level; it has certainly been the experience at the state level. We would like to provide the maximum opportunity for businesses in South Australia to avail themselves of support from the state government.

This is an extraordinary time, this is an absolutely extraordinary time, and it calls for extraordinary measures. We went to the last election saying, quite clearly, that we favoured having balanced budgets in South Australia. We said that because—

Mr Malinauskas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, leader! The Premier has concluded his answer.

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