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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-03-18 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

Skills Training

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (15:23): It has been yet another extraordinary week in the context of our nation in a rather tumultuous time around the world. We started the week with the March 4 Justice rallies across the country where thousands of women, joined by a significant number of men, demonstrated through peaceful gathering and protest, their legitimate concerns about safety in the workplace, amongst other issues regarding women generally.

I thought it was a powerful demonstration of a number of things. Principally and firstly, though, is that there are legitimate issues that are worthy of being addressed, not just in parliamentary workplaces across the country, whether it be here or in Canberra, but in workplaces and indeed the home environment throughout the land. It was also a demonstration that, while there is lots of work for us to do as a country to improve in a number of respects, we can also retain eternal hope in the optimism of the Australian people to look issues in the eye and then address them accordingly.

Much is true in that regard regarding the way the state has responded to COVID-19—not just the state but the country. As much as we have challenges as a country, we are also probably the only place anywhere in the world that anyone would want to be living right now. On almost any metric when it comes to standard of living and health, we are top of the pops. You do not speak to anyone in the streets at the moment who does not reflect on how lucky they feel to be an Australian.

They talk about that in the context of the COVID-19 response, and that is equally true in South Australia as it is anywhere else around the federation. We have been led incredibly well by Grant Stevens and Nicola Spurrier in regard to the health response. This is a safe place to live. We are in a good spot at the moment as a result of their stewardship, and not just their leadership but also the degree of compliance from South Australians. Each and every request that has been made of the people of this state by Professor Spurrier or Grant Stevens has been complied with—each and every one—hence why we have one of the best testing response rates not just anywhere in the country but indeed anywhere in the world.

Again, we are seeing that commitment from South Australians being translated to the vaccine rollout. Every South Australian, by and large, is ready, willing and able to receive that vaccine. They are ready to go. But what they are not seeing a response to is the provision of that vaccine at the rate that we are seeing around the rest of the country. It is unfortunate that we do have the second slowest take-up or rate of delivery of the vaccine anywhere in the country—the second slowest.

So it is little surprise that we have the worst unemployment rate in the nation, because we know that the vaccine is not just our passport back to freedom and our passport back to normality but our passport to a recovery and a return to a strong labour market. It is incredibly alarming that the very people who have sacrificed the most during the course of the COVID-19 crisis—no-one in here, no-one in a job but indeed all those people across our state who gave up their labour or gave up their business in the name of keeping everybody else safe—are the people who have paid the biggest sacrifice in the name of our collective health.

The very people who have paid the biggest sacrifice are indeed the very people who are being let down the most as a result of a lack of leadership from our Premier when it comes to our economic recovery. It is utterly true that it is appropriate for the Premier of the day to rely on Health advice, but while he is relying on that Health advice he has to accept the responsibility for a robust, thoughtful economic policy that might give those people who have paid the biggest sacrifice the opportunity to get their job back, the opportunity to be able to experience the dignity of work, the opportunity to be able to provide for themselves and their family, as we all aspire to do in this place.

That is the responsibility that wholly and solely rests with the Premier of this state. Instead, what we hear in response to having yet again the worst unemployment statistics in the country, the worst youth unemployment statistics in the country, the second lowest participation rate in the country—instead of an acknowledgement of that from the Premier what we see instead is somehow a denial of it and a suggestion that somehow everything is tickety-boo. Well, it is not for those people without a job and not to those people who are trying to work out how they are going to pay the bills this weekend.

Those people need leadership, and that is exactly what the Labor Party will be providing at the next election. It is one year to go. Only 12 months to go. As we go into the post-COVID economic recovery phase, we will not allow a lack of leadership from this Premier to govern the question before the electorate in 12 months' time. Instead what they will hear is a thoughtful, bold policy provision from me and my team, and we look forward to presenting that over the next 12 months, because that is what the people of South Australia deserve.

Time expired.

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