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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-05-14 Daily Xml
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Unemployment Figures

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:11): My question is again to the Premier. Does the Premier concede that today's unemployment rate in South Australia would have been lower had the government supported the more than 1,000 government enterprise workers who are currently out of work?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:11): We are doing a huge amount of work with a large range of sectors right across this state to support them during this particularly difficult period.

Members interjecting:

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

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: It's true that JobSeeker is available to many but not all employees in South Australia, and this is one of the reasons why the federal government—recognising the situation that existed with people who might be employed at the local government level, or the state government level, or in an agency attached to a state government—significantly increased the JobSeeker payment. My understanding is that that number has essentially doubled during this period with the relaxation of some of the other issues or the conditions that needed to be met to access the JobSeeker previously, and that is appreciated by many people.

It's also not understood by everybody that the JobKeeper payment can only be given to a person once. If they have multiple casual employments, and many people who are casual employees do have multiple casual employments, as long as one of those is with a private sector company which meets the criteria—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Reynell!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —then the person receives that JobKeeper; if not the JobKeeper, the JobSeeker. This is an extraordinary level of support for people who do find themselves in hardship. In addition to that, at the state level we have said to people who are on concessions in South Australia who lose their job during this period that we will make a further one-off $500 payment to people. Not only that but we will bring forward that concession payment, which is due, as people would be aware, much later in the year, I think September or maybe October. We will bring that forward to this financial year. We will make sure that that relief comes as quickly as it possibly can.

At the same time that we are supporting people in this endeavour—federally, with the JobKeeper and the JobSeeker and, in South Australia, with the support that we are providing to people who are on the concession who have lost their job.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: We have also been doing everything we possibly can to stimulate economic activity in this state, with sensible level restrictions in South Australia—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for West Torrens!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —that promote employment in this state.

The Hon. Z.L. Bettison interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Ramsay!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: I am very proud that South Australia was the first state to remove the restrictions on elective surgery. That is something that I know provides a great deal of relief to those people who lost their jobs or lost hours linked to that ban originally that was put on all category 3—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —and non-urgent category 2 elective surgery here in Australia. That was a national directive. About 2½ weeks ago we made a decision that we would increase the amount of elective surgery by 25 per cent. This provided some relief, but there were still many people, many doctors—

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Point of order.

The SPEAKER: There is a point of order. Premier, be seated for one moment.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: The question was about 1,000 government enterprise employees and the Premier is talking about elective surgery, sir.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: Point of order, Mr Speaker.

The SPEAKER: Point of order on the point of order.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: The question contained the phrase 'would the Premier concede'. It is an extremely broad statement and allows the Premier great latitude to be able to answer the question.

The SPEAKER: I have the point of order. I would say that I have given the Premier some latitude and so I will listen carefully and ensure that he is sticking to the substance of the question.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: I'm sorry, sir, if I wasn't clear enough. It has been raised that people who were casual employees—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —in the state system were not eligible for JobKeeper. That was the essence of the question—maybe the Leader of the Opposition was confining that to people in a certain part of the Public Service—but one that has been raised is the casual nursing employees, for example, who were not—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! We have the question.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —eligible for JobKeeper. Maybe the opposition are interested; maybe they are not, but I know that people here are interested—

Ms Cook interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Hurtle Vale will not interject.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —and so I was explaining—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —to the house exactly and precisely what we have done to provide further hours for exactly and precisely that group of people. We are very proud that we are the first jurisdiction in the country. As of midnight last night, we have completely lifted the ban on elective surgery and dentistry in South Australia and returned people to employment. Not all of it is going to happen straightaway, but we are working towards that. Our goal is to come out of this stronger than before.

The SPEAKER: The member for Playford is on two warnings. I have given the leader three, so I am moving to the member for Colton and I will come back to the leader.

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