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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-02-25 Daily Xml
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Unemployment Figures

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (15:07): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills a question in relation to unemployment levels.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD: South Australia currently has an unemployment rate of 7.3 per cent. We know that changes to the automotive industry as well as the future of the ASC contracts call into question employment levels in the future, job training, the reskilling of people and job security in South Australia. It was reported yesterday that the Housing Industry Association expects that new home building will decline over the next 12 months, resulting from high unemployment levels and weak economic conditions, according to their reports.

The Housing Industry Association executive director, Robert Harding, noted that about 41 per cent of the cost of a new detached home was taken up with state, local and federal government taxes, which certainly create a barrier to development. Additionally, in recent news we have seen the sacking of 520 staff to date at Santos, after a $935 million four-year net loss, resulting from the significant drop in global oil prices, amongst other things.

The redundancy program has months to run at this point and it is unclear what the expected job losses at Santos will be. They employ 1,586 people directly in South Australia and have another 2,574 contractors, so any future job losses would be of grave concern to South Australians in general and, obviously, in particular the people directly affected. My questions to the minister are:

1. What is the government doing specifically to ensure that retrenched or unemployed workers have appropriate and affordable support and training opportunities available to them to reskill and gain employment?

2. What strategies is the government using to ensure sustainable employment for South Australians?

3. What measures, apart from tax reform, which the government has talked about, is the government taking to attract multiple industries to South Australia so that reliance on a single industry or only a few industries can be lessened?

4. Does the government attribute any benefits to population growth and the knowledge economy in terms of developing a more sustainable South Australia as a potential for growth?

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) (15:09): I thank the honourable member for his most important questions. Indeed, the employment figures for January were of deep concern. However, I have spoken in this place before about the volatility of that month-to-month data and that it is important that we do look at the longer-term trends and, if we look at that, as I have indicated, employment has increased by over 1,800 over the past year compared with this time last year. So, there has been some growth in the longer term, albeit slow. I think that it is important that we are mindful of the longer-term trends; nevertheless, those figures were very disappointing and are something we are obviously watching very carefully.

This government is committed to working with industry and business to ensure that we lead a strategy to modernise and diversify our economy. We know that we have traditionally relied on an older automotive manufacturing model, and we know that we have to transition out of that to try to assist the supply lines to find alternate growth and markets and to assist those people who are currently employed at GM to find alternative employment, and part of that strategy is to assist them in reskilling and suchlike, including retrenchment support as well.

I have indicated in this place before that, although it is easy for us to focus on the doom and gloom, nevertheless there have been some positive elements on our horizon; for instance, South Australia has had record-breaking production in oil and gas and record production in minerals—$7.5 billion in 2013-14, the highest record in South Australia's history. We have had steady export growth, which I have spoken about here before, where the ABS showed that the value of goods exported overseas by South Australia totalled $11.9 billion in 12 months. South Australian products continue to be in great demand, with exports exceeding $11 billion per annum, which is a 2.4 per cent increase on the same period last year. I know that they are export figures, but we know that they translate to jobs somewhere in the supply chain.

I have spoken about private new capital investment being higher in South Australia, seasonally adjusted, compared with a year earlier, so we are doing reasonably well there. South Australia was one of only two states to record a rise in capital expenditure in the quarter. In trend terms, retail figures for South Australia released in January demonstrated that again we were the leading state in retail sales growth in November and, again, that is jobs.

We have invested $60 million in our jobs plan to stimulate the economy, encourage investment and growth in business and build a skilled workforce. We have invested $63 million over three years in skills training and $44 million of initiatives for the resources and energy sector, $10 million in the new regional Jobs Accelerator Fund, and $10 billion towards productive infrastructure, such as roads, rail and suchlike, to help boost our economy and create employment.

I have talked about our jobs plan. It has six pillars to it, and that is aimed at securing the future of our state's manufacturing sector and assisting in diversifying our economy. That involves accelerating the transformation of our manufacturing sector into advanced manufacturing through support for things like clusters, as well as funding for collaboration and innovation. There are a number of initiatives in that pillar.

The second one is accelerating significant infrastructure projects to create jobs during the transition and to help lift productivity. The third element is the creation of a new jobs accelerator fund, around $20 million, to help drive growth in key industry areas. The fourth one is retaining displaced automotive workers to secure new jobs in emerging sectors, and the fifth one is about helping to transition automotive supply businesses into new markets and supporting northern suburbs communities to help generate local activity.

I have talked about support for business growth so I will not go over that—but that is payroll tax concessions, WorkCover, tax reform, and building a skilled workforce. So those drivers are there. Again, I know it is easy to point to those areas where there are closures and suchlike, but we can focus on things like the fact that our major development directory lists over 300 projects that are either under way or in the pipeline and worth around $94.6 billion.

The projects include things like Playford council's $400 million redevelopment of the city centre, SA Water's $62 million upgrade of the Aldinga wastewater treatment plant and Flinders University's $63 million redevelopment of the plaza and student hub; and SA Power Networks has signalled an intention to spend $2.49 billion in upgrading infrastructure and doing reliability works over the next five years.

The South Australian-based Hornsdale Wind Farm has been selected as one of three Australian wind farms to deliver power to the ACT under a 20-year deal. That is likely to see the development, I am advised, of around $900 million in wind farm development in this state. There is good news from Sundrop Farms, and a whole raft of other areas where we see new investments and new business growth and development. As I said, we continue to work together with businesses and industry to ensure that we have a vibrant and strong economy and strong jobs growth.

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