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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-09-03 Daily Xml
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State Economy

Ms HOOD (Adelaide) (14:31): My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier update the house on the South Australian economy?

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:31): Thank you to the member for Adelaide for her question. The member for Adelaide knows that our kids and future generations of South Australians getting jobs and having a decent standard of living is so much informed by the performance of our economy. Today, only a couple of hours ago, the Australian Bureau of Statistics released their economic growth numbers.

I am very pleased to report to the house that this state is the fastest growing economy on the mainland of this country. We are experiencing economic growth numbers that are consistently now far outpacing almost all other jurisdictions and certainly outpacing the rest of the nation. In the most recent financial year, following the June quarter figures being released today, I am pleased to report that the South Australian economy grew by 3.3 per cent. The rest of the nation grew by 2.2 per cent.

This is a state whose economy continues to power ahead. We see this on the back of the most recent employment numbers, which yet again showed, from the ABS, that more people in South Australia are employed than ever before. We seem to have month after month of record growth numbers. We are getting unemployment numbers that we have seen a three in front of. There have only been 15 occasions in the history of records being kept in this country where South Australia has had an unemployment rate with a three in front of it, and all 15 of those occasions have occurred during the course of the life of this government.

We have now got an economy that is growing not by a marginal amount but by a full 100 basis points faster and larger than the rest of the economy. This is a place that is delivering results, and for our young people that means more opportunities. People used to talk about the brain drain. Well, there ain't no brain drain if there's a good job to be had, and there are plenty of those in South Australia.

More than that, one of the major contributors to economic growth in South Australia at the moment is the record investment in dwelling investment, which is up by 4½ per cent, yet again at rates that outpace the rest of the nation. More homes are being built in this state. If you want to do something about housing, you have got to see more homes being built. You don't incentivise higher prices for vendors, which is their policy: what you do is you actually deliver outcomes in terms of increasing housing supply.

This is a state that is going places and increasingly getting the attention of the rest of the nation for it, and why is that? First and foremost, it is because of the ingenuity and the enterprise of so many businesses in our state that continue to invest, renew, capitalise and show strength in their own position. We commend them first and foremost, but second to that, we have a government that is actually getting things done.

We are pulling all of the levers at our disposal to make a difference in economic performance, whether that be in housing, in training and apprenticeships, in what we are doing in our skills policy more broadly with higher education amalgamations or investing in our schools, or in investing in major events to open up attraction to our state for visitors who want to spend money in our economy, which on balance—in terms of the size of the investment and the reward that we get back—is money for jam.

We are doing everything that we can to see that our economy grows, and it is yielding dividends. The fastest growing economy in the mainland of this country is something to be proud of, and this government is committed to keep delivering results because that matters to the living standards of South Australians.

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