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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-03-21 Daily Xml
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Question Time

Small Business

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:05): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. The truth is, of course, there are businesses within our community that are feeling the pinch of an inflationary environment. The nature of inflation, of course, is that it is insidious by virtue of the fact that it has an effect on everybody: households and businesses large or small.

There was good news during the course of this week. One of the costs that matters most to those in the hospitality industry—beyond their rent and their labour costs, which normally represent their biggest costs of doing business—is energy costs. Hospitality operators are significant users of energy. Just this week, we saw from our federal regulators in respect of the energy market that the price of electricity for small business in South Australia is going down.

I note that those opposite were very keen to associate themselves with forecasts only a few days ago suggesting that power prices were going to go up by 20 per cent. Well, yet again, they backed a loser, because that hasn't just proven to be untrue, it has been proven to be completely off the mark. We know that the direct market offer for small business in South Australia is seeing a reduction in power prices of between 8 and 9 per cent—8 and 9 per cent. That is a very significant quantum indeed.

What we also know is that those in hospitality, when they assess the public policy of the government versus the—well, they can't really assess it against the policy of the opposition, obviously, because there isn't any, but—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: —in the absence of any policy from the alternative government of the state, they would have to look at the policy of the former government, and they will see a very clear contrast between this government and its support of the hospitality and tourism sectors, which has been ongoing, sustained and being delivered from day one in our very first budget, versus the former government's policy that, of course, wreaked—

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Morialta is warned.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: —significant harm—

Mr Cowdrey interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Colton!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: —on the hospitality sector.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: We know that in opposition, we did the work—

The Hon. D.G. Pisoni interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Unley!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: —of developing a policy—

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Morialta is warned for a second time.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: —that the Minister for Tourism made—

The Hon. S.C. Mullighan interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Treasurer!

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The Treasurer is warned. The member for Morialta is on a second warning. The member for Chaffey is warned. The member for Florey is warned. The Premier has the call.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: When the shadow treasurer, now the Treasurer, the shadow tourism minister, now the tourism minister, and I were spending time with hospitality businesses in the tourism sector and otherwise, they were saying to us, 'What can a Labor government do for our industry? We have been decimated on the back of COVID. The government has been cancelling major events that want to continue. The Liberal government have really hurt us with all their land tax increases around the place that are having an impact on our business. What can you do about it?

We said, 'Righto, let's develop a major event strategy. Let's drive demand into our state. Let's provide stability and respect to taxation policy. Let's have a plan to increase generation capacity in South Australia, publicly owned rather than privately sold off, in respect to the energy market.' We are doing each and every one of these things. They are making a difference on the ground and we know a lot of businesses in the state are very grateful for it.

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