Employment Figures

The Hon. S.G. WADE (15:30): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills a question relating to unemployment across South Australia.

Leave granted.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: South Australia remains the only state with a Labor government. Unfortunately, while the economic fortunes of other states improve, South Australia continues to diminish, even compared with states such as Tasmania, which had to endure 16 years of a Labor government. My questions to the minister are:

1. Can the minister explain why the ANZ job ad survey reported that there are, on average, only 206 newspaper job advertisements in South Australia each week in July, yet Tasmania, which has less than one-third of South Australia's population, averaged a higher number: 214, newspaper job advertisements during the same period?

2. Why did newspaper job ads fall in South Australia by 18.4 per cent seasonally adjusted in July when in Tasmania newspaper job ads increased by 8.1 per cent seasonally adjusted in the same month?

3. Why is South Australia's unemployment rate of 7.4 per cent the highest in the country?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills, Minister for Science and Information Economy, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Business Services and Consumers) (15:31): I thank the honourable member for his most important questions. Obviously, the opposition has run out of questions because they are asking the same question twice. I have already put on the record a considerable answer to the honourable member's question in relation to the ANZ numbers. I have already talked in this place about how the trends were down pretty much right across the nation.

I have already talked in this place about some of the particular challenges that South Australia faced. We have an economy that is particularly heavily reliant on a traditional manufacturing sector that was very adversely impacted by fairly recent national and international economic trends. The hardening of the dollar has also had a big impact on us. We are also one of the oldest populations in the nation as well, which very much impacts on unemployment rates, job vacancy rates and suchlike.

I have talked about the importance of a number of strong economic indicators that are quite positive for us. I have talked about the strength of our exports, which is very encouraging. I have talked about our nominal trend retail turnover, where there has been very positive growth in the last 12 months to May. I have talked about new dwelling approvals being up over the last 12 months to May. I have talked about the PACE program today that was announced by minister Koutsantonis in relation to mineral exploration opportunities.

We have a job plan and our plan is to stimulate the economy, to encourage investment and growth in business and to build a skilled workforce. I outlined in my response to the question from the Hon. Jing Lee on the same issue a number of funding initiatives that we have put in place to address those things.