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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-11-26 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

State Economy

Mr TELFER (Flinders) (16:03): Christmas is approaching but it continues to be a challenging time for the people of South Australia, with families facing the cost-of-living crisis under this Malinauskas state Labor government in conjunction with his good friend Anthony Albanese's federal Labor government. In South Australia, we have the lowest household disposable income per capita of any state or territory in the nation. Let me repeat that again because it is really important for decision-makers to understand: we have the lowest household disposable income per capita of any state or territory in the nation.

At the moment, we have a Premier, and his minions who follow, crowing about how great the state economy is doing. Christmas may be approaching but this Labor government grinch seems to be stealing away the Christmas joy from South Australian businesses and at a desperately needed time for some in the business community in South Australia. Our state has recorded the second-weakest growth in the nation for the last financial year, in part due to business failures in South Australia reaching their highest point since the COVID pandemic.

With business failures on the rise, it would be expected that the government would step in and ease the burden on business owners, but this is not the case. In fact, according to the South Australian Business Chamber's most recent quarterly Survey of Business Expectations, the impact of government regulations went from the fifth biggest issue to the third for businesses in the last 12 months. One respondent said that they believed more small and medium enterprises would decide that it was not worth running a business in South Australia with the amount of red tape.

What red tape would it be? Well, according to the South Australian Business Chamber's Survey of Business Expectations, more than half of all respondents say that time taken to address tax compliance has increased. And, of those with tax compliance concerns, more than 60 per cent of respondents said their major tax compliance concern was related to payroll tax.

We heard today from the Minister for Small and Family Business. The only answer she had on payroll tax was to commend the previous Liberal government for their great decision on policy. She has no plan to try to ease that payroll tax burden. This Labor government continues to wallow in the significant increase in revenue from taxes such as these at the expense of businesses, their workers, their customers, and the families of South Australia.

With so much negativity surrounding business expectations, it should not be a surprise that the South Australian Business Chamber's survey also found that less than 16 per cent of South Australian businesses felt the South Australian economy will be stronger or somewhat stronger within the next 12 months—only 16 per cent. That leaves 84 per cent that have no confidence in the decisions that are being made by this government. This comes from a Premier who promised to be a friend to the business community. He promised to be a friend. Maybe that promise is as useful as his promise to fix ramping. All talk and no Christmas joy from this Premier.

What about the lack of Christmas cheer around housing? These numbers are truly worrying. It takes 11.8 years in Adelaide to save a 20 per cent deposit. That is the second longest in the nation. We have the highest percentage of household income required to service rental payments—the highest percentage of household income. We have the second highest percentage of household income required to service a mortgage.

Dwelling value to income ratio: the ability to actually have the asset recompense for your income, is the second highest in the nation. Some of these numbers are truly worrying—nine times the median income to buy a medium-value house. If you happen to be under 30 the news gets worse because, according to the latest ABS Labour Force Survey released last week, the unemployment rate for people under 30 has increased from 7 per cent to 9.3 per cent in the last two months—an alarming increase.

Those unemployment rates for people in regional South Australia are even more confronting: from 1.3 per cent to 5.1 per cent, and for women under 30 in regional South Australia, from 3.5 per cent to 7.7 per cent. It is no surprise that this is causing ripples within the business community. The stats that we have seen really do concern people coming up to Christmas. This is the not-so-merry Christmas present from this Labor government to the families of South Australia and it is all wrapped up in a bow of red tape.

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