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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-07-06 Daily Xml
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Motions

State Budget 2021-22

Mr COWDREY (Colton) (11:25): Thank you, sir, and welcome, Harrison. I move:

That this house commends the Marshall Liberal Government for its strong budgetary management, confirmed by:

(a) meeting its commitments to eliminate payroll tax on small business, slash the emergency services levy for families and business and cut water bills, while providing support to families and businesses during COVID-19 totalling more than $4 billion;

(b) delivering a 2021-22 budget which returns the operating balance to surplus in 2022-23; and

(c) delivering upgrades to South Australia’s credit rating by rating agencies.

When we came to government in 2018, South Australia's economy was lagging behind. That is because our taxes were too high. It was the same with our water prices: they were too high for far too long. The former Liberal government changed this. We delivered on our commitments to eliminate payroll tax on small business, slash the emergency services levy for families and small businesses, and cut water bills.

Under Labor, payroll tax—a tax on jobs growth which disincentivised business from growing—was paid by all South Australian small businesses with a payroll under $1½ million, costing businesses up to $44,500 extra a year. This was abolished in our first year in government, saving over 3,000 South Australian small businesses from this job-wrecking tax. Our abolition of payroll tax for small business was a $157 million investment in the engine room of our economy here in this state.

We cut emergency services levy bills by $95.5 million a year, providing an average saving of $184 per household back into the pockets of South Australians, an approximate 50 per cent reduction compared with the former Labor government's position. From 1 July 2020 average households began saving approximately $200 each year on water bills, while average businesses began saving $1,350.

As you are aware, Mr Speaker, this was on the back of an independent inquiry into water pricing in South Australia that was conducted in 2019. It found that the former Labor government ignored advice and criticism by the Essential Services Commission of South Australia (ESCOSA) and other stakeholders by deliberately inflating the value of SA Water's regulatory asset base by at least $520 million, in 2012 dollars, to the value of $7.77 billion to maximise profits and protect government revenues, but this drove up water bills for South Australians.

At the same time as lowering costs for South Australians, we did more to transform our state's economic opportunities than Labor did in the 16 years it was last in office. In four years, we delivered near record low unemployment rates and historically high economic growth. In 2018, when we came to government, Labor had failed to turn a surplus in seven of the previous 10 years. There were structural issues riddled through the budget. Forward assumptions and projected surpluses had been predicated on savings tasks being achieved, particularly in health, and we now know that these were never achieved.

One-off budget-boosting hits were a staple when the member for West Torrens was in the business of selling anything that was not nailed down. The Labor Party's privatisation legacy is long: SA Lotteries, the forests, the lands titles office and the Motor Accident Commission. These privatisation activities robbed the state of future revenue streams and, further, put pressure on the long-term budget position.

The structural budget changes that were pushed through in 2018 saw S&P upgrade the state's credit rating to AA+, having been downgraded twice under the former Labor government in 2012, from AAA down to AA+, down to AA. At the same time, in 2012 Moody's also downgraded the state's credit rating. Then we entered 2020, and the world came to grips with what we now know as COVID-19. I still remember the early media commentary around the virus: what was it, what will it end up being, will this be our first pandemic in so many years, and what impacts can or will it have?

We now know that the WHO declared COVID-19 a worldwide pandemic on 11 March 2020. In early 2020, the Australian border closed and state borders closed quickly after. An unparalleled health crisis and an unparalleled economic crisis came, coincidentally in parallel. South Australians would agree that this was nothing compared with the financial and economic challenges we were to confront.

Not a single member here would have imagined or wanted a scenario where we were preparing budgets in the context of the Governor of the Reserve Bank, the federal Treasury Secretary, and national and business economic commentators all urging governments of all persuasions to keep spending and incurring massive increases in debt and deficits and to continue to expand their balance sheets, but this is what confronted the previous government.

This was a liquidity crunch like no other we have seen, and the former government did what was required and the results speak for themselves. The biggest impact of course was felt during the second quarter of 2020, when the country virtually came to a standstill, from both a movement perspective and a liquidity perspective. Consumption dropped, as did government revenues, jobs were lost and stress levels were high. Support was needed and a rebound plan necessary.

The former Liberal government provided a more than $4 billion stimulus package to support households and businesses during the period of COVID-19. This was seen by way of business support grants, tax relief, water bill relief, a rental freeze, grant schemes, support for major event cancellations, school and preschool maintenance projects, $10,000 grants for small businesses, and multiple other rounds of support. Port upgrades, housing construction stimulus, tourism sector support, hospital, sporting club, roads, jetties, visitor centres and other infrastructure projects kept our economy afloat.

These are just a few of the measures that were delivered, along with infrastructure spending, that kept our economy ticking along over that period. We funded what was required from a health perspective over that period. Essentially, we provided all the funding that was necessary to keep South Australians safe, to save as many South Australian lives as possible.

From early 2020 onwards, we supported quarantine facilities, testing stations, vaccines, app development, emergency services activities, arrival checks, cleaning, PPE, masks and RAT tests. While managing the largest health and economic crisis, we also continued to deliver state-changing infrastructure projects at Lot Fourteen, on our road network from Port Augusta to Portrush Road and across nearly every area of our state. We worked on the road maintenance backlog left to us by the former government, we upgraded hospitals and we built new schools and significantly upgraded others.

Yes, government debt has increased—necessarily so. In the general government sector, this reflects the government's response to, and the revenue reductions from, the COVID-19 pandemic, public infrastructure spending—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr COWDREY: —additional funding for health—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for West Torrens is called to order.

Mr COWDREY: —as well as costs associated with responding to the recovery from the 2019 bushfires, a significant event that we should never forget and one that I know you, sir, will never forget. But what was the alternative? Was it that we did not support—

The Hon. N.D. Champion interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Taylor!

Mr COWDREY: —the cash injections—

The Hon. N.D. Champion interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Taylor is called to order.

Mr COWDREY: —to business in their time of need?

Mr Tarzia interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Hartley!

Mr COWDREY: Was it that we continued to demand tax from people who could not afford it or that we did not intervene and provide stimulus spending that created and retained jobs around infrastructure projects? The then opposition were all too quick to demand more support but also all too keen to criticise increased debt. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr COWDREY: The measures introduced by our government, both pre COVID—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for West Torrens is called to order.

Mr COWDREY: —and in response to COVID, were framed in two ways—

The Hon. N.D. Champion interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Taylor!

Mr COWDREY: —to create jobs and to sustain jobs and to provide business with confidence to employ more South Australians and to continue to invest in our state. We left government with nation-leading business confidence. Even so, our careful budget management means we will return to an operating surplus this financial year, as confirmed by the Mid-Year Budget Review and the current government's own budget.

Our state's financial position has also been boosted by government revenue receipts from upward revisions based on the strength of our economic rebound. This was no easy feat, based on what we faced over the past few years. Some said that the State Bank collapse was the biggest economic challenge we would ever face. It is clear that those events now take a back seat to the events that we have faced since early 2020.

While it was challenging, we are proud of the economic management that we put forward over the past four years. We did what was required of us to fix the ongoing structural issues and the mess that was left to us by the Labor Party and then respond in a sensible and measured way to COVID-19. Our response was nation leading and resulted in significant job creation, record growth and nation-leading business confidence. The Liberal Party will always deliver strong economic management that is suitable for the times and the challenges that we are presented.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Energy and Mining) (11:37): Obviously the government opposes this piece of rewriting of history. I would just point out to the shadow treasurer that if everything he said were true about business confidence and business delight at their stewardship of the economy why did business so comprehensively reject them at the last election? Why are so many business leaders out there saying that they voted Labor for the first time in their lives? Perhaps it is not because of the member's speech and the tinted glasses through which he looks at the last four years. Perhaps it is because, over the last four years, the former Premier and his Treasurer set about dismantling the Liberal Party's core value of being pro business.

When we talk about debt, the former government inherited a general government sector debt of around $6 billion and, in their first budget, they increased that debt by $10 billion before we had even heard of the term COVID-19. What was that $10 billion for? It was for recurrent spending—they were borrowing money to spend on recurrent expenditure. Yet the shadow treasurer gets up to talk about their fiscal genius in running a budget.

Then, of course, they talk about their tax cuts. The shadow Treasurer claimed that every small business paid payroll tax, ignoring that there was a tax-free threshold of up to $600,000. Did he correct the statement in the parliament, or did he just not know that there was a tax-free threshold? Of course there was a tax-free threshold, and payroll tax was cut by the previous government. It was reduced.

But, of course, we cut taxes on a scale members opposite only dream about. We abolished an entire stamp duty on all commercial transactions. That tax cut is worth billions, not hundreds of millions, and the changes that has made to family businesses in South Australia are being borne out even today. Changes to motor registration, which the former government took credit for, were as a result of the ending of the Motor Accident Commission issuing third-party premiums and that being open to competitive processes by insurance companies, which members opposite opposed and then tried to take credit for. They are happy to spend the money on Labor projects that we had announced in the 2017 budget, claiming them to be their own.

Then we get to tax cuts. Well, let's talk about land tax, which I did not hear very much about in the member's discussion. Land tax in South Australia is a vexing issue. Why? Most South Australian investors are investing in property for a reason. They can see and touch it, it is close to them, it is easy to manage, it is a market that is well known, it is stable. What did the Liberal Party do? The Liberal Party decided to bring in aggregation laws that have fundamentally made it almost uneconomic for any small to medium-sized businesses, entrepreneurs or mum-and-dad investors to purchase another property.

Why did they do that? Because they could. They had banked in the 2022 election and banked in the 2026 election, and arrogance had overtaken them within months of taking office: a Premier who was out of touch and not listening, enjoying the high life rather than doing his job, and a former Treasurer who had cast a spell over the entire cabinet and did as he pleased.

The result is that after one term they are in opposition, and we get motions congratulating themselves on losing. If everything you had said in this motion were true, you would be standing here and I would be over there, but of course that did not happen. Why? Because what we just heard was a fairytale. It is not true. It did not happen. It is not the perception of what people went through. People did not see the economic management of the former government as something that was worthwhile or helping business. In fact, businesses could not wait to see the back of them.

If the swings that they received on the weekend in Bragg are not a signal that your base is leaving you, then what is? So self-congratulatory motions serve no purpose. In fact, you should know better, because I think the member is better than that. I have to say their record of management of budgets is deplorable, and in the last two governments it has been the same Treasurer. They could not find one after 16 years and went back to the same bloke they had previously.

From our last budget in 2018 state debt has doubled under the previous government, doubled in four years: a debt-to-revenue ratio that went from below 35 per cent to over 100—and we are being lectured about economic management. If we had not acted in this budget through the Treasurer's sound management and the cabinet's prudent support of his measures, government debt would have been $64 billion by 2035-36.

After having cut taxes like the emergency services levy and reducing payroll tax, how did they pay for those? Well, in the subsequent budgets they increased public hospital parking fees, they increased the cost of a tradie getting a certificate, they increased car registration and licence fees and then they went after land tax. They went after their base, and they went after them hard.

I have to say that we are projecting surpluses across the forward estimates because we want to support jobs, we want to prudently manage our debt and we want to make sure that we maintain a level of fiscal discipline. What we will not allow is one man, like the former Treasurer Rob Lucas, to treat the state treasury as his personal plaything and to treat the wallets and budgets of households across South Australia as if it is his discretion to do with as he pleases, like he did with land tax.

In terms of the credit ratings, the former Labor government provided budgetary management at a level that was classified as AA+ (stable). That then, under the Marshall government, went to AA+ (negative outlook), yet the Premier during the election campaign was publicly saying that they inherited a poor credit rating, but they were downgraded from where we left them. I would enjoy the former Premier saying that statement in the parliament now and see how he goes, but of course he will not because that would be misleading.

The rhetoric of the opposition is that they think if they say something enough, even though it is factually wrong, people will just believe it. Well, the people of South Australia did not believe them. They trashed the budget over the last four years, and their reckless management of South Australia's economy has been punished. They got punished at the polls and they got punished again on the weekend, and they still have not learned because they are turning up and moving motions in the parliament as if they have learnt nothing. Everything was fantastic over the last four years, there were no concerns, nothing to learn from, we made no mistakes, our management was perfect—that is the message the people of South Australia hear from these types of motions. How about listening?

After we were in office for 16 years we embarked on a program of out there and listening, and the Leader of the Opposition at the time, Mr Malinauskas, said this: 'If all of our policies were right we would have been re-elected, but they weren't, so we have to listen about what we got wrong.' What part of this motion says, 'We will listen to the mistakes we made'? None. This motion says, 'The public got it wrong, we were right, they just do not understand our genius.' That is what that motion says.

Mr Brown: Keep thinking it.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Whoever asks—keep thinking it, don't go changing, don't change your strategy, keep on pretending you were robbed.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (11:47): I rise to speak on the motion in regard to the fiscal management of the former Marshall government. I am very proud to have served in that government and proud that the member for Colton has brought this on. This motion is as follows:

That this house commends the Marshall Liberal government for its strong budgetary management, confirmed by—

(a) meeting its commitments to eliminate payroll tax on small business, slash the emergency services levy for families and business and cut water bills, while providing support to families and business during COVID-19 totalling more than $4 billion;

(b) delivering a 2021-22 budget which returns the operating balance to surplus in 2022-23; and

(c) delivering upgrades to South Australia's credit rating by rating agencies.

Before I go into some of that, we have just been preached to by the member for West Torrens who obviously has a short memory of a lot of the budgetary mismanagement that Labor had in the past.

The former member for Port Adelaide, Kevin Foley, had a building that he committed to sell that he did not own the land under. The government of the day—the previous Labor government before we came into power—and Kevin Foley, the previous member for Port Adelaide, were so committed to selling this building until someone suddenly tapped them on the shoulder one day and said, 'Hang on, you can't do that. You actually don't own the land, and you don't own the building.' How disgraceful.

An honourable member: Outrageous!

Mr PEDERICK: It is outrageous. Then we saw what was sold off by the people opposite when they were in government previously: the Lotteries Commission, the lands titles office, the Motor Accident Commission—

Mr Brown interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Florey!

Mr PEDERICK: —and the forests, which they did not sell: they gave away—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for West Torrens!

Mr PEDERICK: —for $650 million. It was worth at least $1 billion and you know it, member for West Torrens—you know it. The former member for Mount Gambier had to step aside. The former minister, Minister McEwen, had to step aside from his role because he knew how disgraceful it was for his community in the South-East. He knew how disgraceful a position it was. He was done over by his own mates in the Labor Party to give away the forests.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

Mr PEDERICK: The minister smirks and carries on on the other side, but he is well aware—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, member for West Torrens!

Mr PEDERICK: You had your time. He smirks and carries on over there, as he does. They gave it away, disrupted the South-East, disrupted the livelihoods of all those people reliant on those forests. It was not just part of South Australia; they had forests in Victoria as well. I was the shadow spokesperson at the time and, as I said, the former minister, Minister McEwen, stepped away, scuttled out of sight, he was so disgraced. He was being done over by his Labor mates. That is what happens when rats get caught up in a ship like that.

It was disgraceful for the economy of the South-East. Then we have the member for West Torrens presiding over the Gillman land deal, which was going to bring thousands of jobs for the oil and gas industry in South Australia. How did that go? How well did that go? Not one job—not one job. The only jobs that came out of that process ended up in a courtroom under an ICAC probe. That is what happened with the Gillman land deal—not one job for the vital oil and gas industry in South Australia.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Florey! Member for West Torrens!

Mr PEDERICK: I want to now talk about what we have—

Mr Odenwalder interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Elizabeth!

Mr PEDERICK: I want to now talk about the issues—

Members interjecting:

Mr PEDERICK: No, it's alright—go to town. I want to now talk about what we did do in the Marshall Liberal government—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for West Torrens!

Mr PEDERICK: —reducing that payroll tax burden on 3,000 businesses, saving $157 million, a great job to assist small and medium businesses in South Australia; $95 million on the emergency services levy, every year that was saved—$380 million that was saved for the citizens of South Australia for the vital provision of emergency services vehicles in this state, but we still managed to provide those vehicles.

The emergency services levy funds right across the board, whether it is the Metropolitan Fire Service, the Country Fire Service, the State Emergency Service, the Volunteer Marine Rescue and SAFECOM or the rescue components of Surf Life Saving South Australia, the South Australia Police rescue and the State Rescue Helicopter Service.

This came in, but also recognising some organisations that were made exempt, noticing the contribution they made to emergency services across the board. These are vital funds, but we managed to save that amount of money over four years to assist the people of South Australia in their budgetary outcomes.

I look at what happened with SA Water. We reduced water costs for people right across the state, whereas the previous government overinflated the asset base of SA Water by over $500 million and so overcharged the good people of South Australia. That means the farmers, like in my area—and I am on the same pipeline, the water for my property comes off the Keith pipeline, and there are other pipelines from the River Murray that go right around the state, right over to Ceduna, to the Yorke Peninsula, the Mid Murray, over a fair swag of the state's landmass—were being overcharged.

People were working out different ways that they could use that salty groundwater, which is too salty through our water from Tailem Bend down to Keith, and 'shandying' it with desalinated water from out of that groundwater with the River Murray water to save costs. They were putting in their own water catchment areas with tarpaulins and dams to save water. This is people spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to make sure that their water prices could be sustainable for them into the future.

We did have a solid commitment and I think we did a magnificent job during the COVID-19 onset into South Australia in March 2020. The shadow treasurer has pointed out the projects that we took on and how we managed that and I think we managed it as well if not better than anywhere else in the world. I think this state was the safest state in the safest country in the world in COVID-19 management. When you think about the previous pandemic, the Spanish flu, it was 100 years ago, and the things we had to put in place on this occasion were harsh, particularly for the people in border communities, which I represent with Pinnaroo and then Murrayville on the other side and associated communities.

It was tough. A lot of people in areas that were not impacted as much as the border communities have no idea about the tests they were having weekly. This was so that they could cross borders in order to work their businesses, work their farms and just get on with life, just to get the health people across the border, just to get the teachers across the border and to get the biosecurity workers across the border. We poured in hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to support communities, to put those healthcare workers out on the frontline and help keep South Australia safe.

I commend this motion by the member for Colton and I support the work of the previous Marshall Liberal government that I was incredibly proud to serve under.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta) (11:57): I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this motion on behalf of residents in the seat of Morialta for whom the issues raised in this motion are tremendously important. I commend the member for Colton, the shadow treasurer, for bringing it to the attention of the house. At its heart, this motion talks about the cost of living and the cost of doing business here in South Australia. Indeed, it notes that it was a priority for the Marshall Liberal government, in office from 2018-22, to run strong budgetary management to enable relief on the cost of living for residents and householders, relief for the cost of doing business in South Australia and particularly for small businesses. So many of those small businesses are run by people who live in my electorate and, indeed, who are employing people who live in my electorate of Morialta.

Of course, during that four-year period, there was the extraordinary and pretty much in modern terms unprecedented challenge of the coronavirus pandemic. When we had that pandemic and the challenges that we faced we responded in a way that was completely supported by the Reserve Bank governor who urged premiers and urged governments to put money in the economy, to support businesses, to support communities in a way that in normal times would be a large, large, large amount of money. But we did that because it helped keep our state safe. It helped ensure that people could stay in jobs and, indeed, the state has benefited through improved credit ratings.

I want to talk particularly about the cost of living and the cost of doing business. Between 2018 and 2022, South Australian families saw significant benefits through reductions in their electricity bills and reductions in their water bills. The way the Marshall Liberal government approached water pricing, by reviewing the real value of the asset so that the government was not benefiting from more money coming into government coffers from SA Water through an inappropriate valuation of the asset, returned money to families. Families in Morialta are hundreds of dollars better off as a result of that. The reduction in electricity bills between 2018 and 2022 was significant.

The elimination of payroll tax is not just a significant benefit for small businesses, it is not just a significant benefit for the people who are more likely to be employed as a result of the abolition of payroll tax on any business with a payroll of less than $1.5 million, but it is a statement by the state government, by the former Marshall Liberal government, that payroll tax has no place in blocking the employment of people in South Australia. Some people may have forgotten that payroll tax was instituted as a measure to suppress employment.

Payroll tax was introduced during the war when the government wanted to make sure there were more young people available to serve in the armed forces, not taking up positions in businesses. It was designed to stop businesses from employing people but, for decades and decades, governments became addicted to the revenue created by payroll tax, particularly the wicked revenue created by payroll tax on small businesses. It took the Marshall Liberal government to dramatically lift the threshold so that no small business employing 10 or 15 people would pay payroll tax any longer, and certainly no small business with a payroll under $1.5 million.

That was one of the reasons I got interested in politics—my family's business. In the early 1990s, the recession we had to have had happened. As a young person, as a teenager who was potentially more interested in politics as a result of this than most 13 year olds would be, I saw on the TV that there were people lining up wanting jobs. I heard from my dad, chatting to his accountant with my mum, that they were being encouraged to think about the implications of payroll tax on the business if they employed more people, if they took all the jobs that they were able to get, because they would go over the payroll tax threshold. It would not necessarily be in the company's interests.

Ever since then, I have had a very strong interest in ensuring that small businesses are enabled by government to employ people, that small businesses are enabled by government so that people who are putting skin in the game can get the reward for effort and can employ other South Australians. I was very proud to be part of a government that abolished payroll tax on small business. It goes down as one of a great number of legacies of Steven Marshall's term as Premier of the Marshall Liberal government that we can be very proud of.

I understand the government has indicated that they are going to be opposing this motion. That is disappointing, and I think they should reflect on that. Government members should reflect on what it says to the community in South Australia that the government would oppose a motion that heralds the benefits of reducing the cost of living for South Australians and reducing the cost of doing business for South Australian businesses. It has no practical impact on the way they do their business, but it makes a statement that they do not support the reductions that were undertaken by the Marshall Liberal government, that they do not support the abolition of payroll tax on small business. That is the only conclusion we can draw if the government does vote against this motion.

If members opposite vote against the motion, what they are saying to their communities is that they do not support reducing the ESL levies, they do not support reducing water bills and they do not support the abolition of payroll tax on small business. They should think about that as they are making their vote. I encourage all members to support this motion, and I once again place on the record my commendation for former Premier Marshall for, amongst many achievements, the reductions in cost-of-living pressures on South Australians and the abolition of payroll tax on small businesses.

Mr COWDREY (Colton) (12:04): I quickly thank members for their contributions to the motion this morning. As I respond to a couple of the points made, I think the opposition leader has already made it very clear publicly in regard to some of the points the member for West Torrens raised that by no means does the Liberal Party or the opposition believe that we got everything right over the last four years. Clearly, that is a statement that would not be true.

We have committed ourselves to going back out into the suburbs and into country towns to listen and to learn. That is what every good opposition does. We will be using the next four years to develop a suite of policies that we will take to the next election that will outline our vision for South Australia moving forward, one that will be positive and one that will be forward looking.

It was an incredibly long bow for the member for West Torrens to draw, as he so often does, to say that this motion says anything more than the words that are in this motion. I did notice and will note that the member for West Torrens also failed to reflect on his privatisation agenda for government, but that will not be lost on anybody.

This motion does nothing more than highlight the reforms that the former Liberal government implemented, designed to reduce the cost of living for South Australians and to reduce the cost of doing business for those small businesses in South Australia. They are the backbone of our economy. It is their growth that we will bank on to create the jobs for tomorrow and the jobs for our young people just leaving school.

In terms of our economy, our ambition for this state really does stem from a change in industry and from developing the new jobs for the future. Lot Fourteen is a perfect way of encapsulating that vision: that we want to see businesses moving here and we want to see South Australia as a place where businesses can start, can grow and can succeed.

I do not think that anyone on either side of this chamber would say that our response to COVID-19 was perfect. I think that statement is evidently true. But there was no playbook. We did the absolute best that we possibly could with the resources that were available to us and used every bit of intelligence that was available to us at the time the decisions were made. But certainly it is also true to say that comparatively our economy was as resilient as any jurisdiction, certainly in this country but most likely in the world.

On the back of what has been the biggest shock to our economy, the biggest shock to our community that we have seen in probably the past 100 years, we have come out the other side with the lowest unemployment in our state's history. We have come out the other side with the NAB Business Survey indicating nation-leading business confidence in South Australia and we have come out the other side with nation-leading and high levels of economic growth.

We definitely did something right—that goes without saying. It is a reflection on the settings that this government put forward, the response that this government put forward, but most importantly it is a reflection on the resilience of South Australians and South Australian businesses and for that I think everybody in this chamber will be grateful.

Ayes 12

Noes 23

Majority 11

AYES
Basham, D.K.B. Cowdrey, M.J. (teller) Ellis, F.J.
Gardner, J.A.W. Hurn, A. McBride, P.N.
Patterson, S.J.R. Pederick, A.S. Pisoni, D.G.
Pratt, P. Telfer, S.J. Whetstone, T.J.
NOES
Andrews, S.E. Bettison, Z.L. Boyer, B.I.
Brock, G.G. Brown, M.E. Champion, N.D.
Clancy, N.P. Close, S.E. Cook, N.F.
Fulbrook, J. Hildyard, K.A. Hood, L.
Hughes, E.J. Hutchesson, C.L. Koutsantonis, A.
Michaels, A. Odenwalder, L.K. (teller) Pearce, R.K.
Picton, C.J. Stinson, J.M. Szakacs, J.K.
Thompson, E.L. Wortley, D.
PAIRS
Marshall, S.S. Mullighan, S.C. Speirs, D.J.
Malinauskas, P.B. Tarzia, V.A. Savvas, O.M.
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