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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-03-03 Daily Xml
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Single Touch Payroll

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (14:32): My question is to the Treasurer. Can the Treasurer update the chamber on the single-touch payroll figures for South Australia as released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics?

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The Hon. Mr Wortley and other colleagues should remain silent. The Treasurer has the call.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (14:33): These figures are hot off the press, hot to touch. I only just received them prior to question time, so I thank the hardworking public servants in Treasury. We always acknowledge the hardworking public servants, particularly those in Treasury. I am delighted to be able to report that—

The Hon. K.J. Maher interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: The Leader of the Opposition is out of order.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: —on the key issues of jobs and wages, that is, incomes going into households, the sorts of issues that people in the Myer food court can relate to, the people who are out there—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: —can relate to, jobs and wages, the sorts of things they want to talk about—I am delighted to see that—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: —single-touch payroll figures—

The Hon. K.J. Maher interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The Leader of the Opposition is out of order.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: —from the lowest point of the pandemic, which was 18 April—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: The deputy leader is not helping and neither is the Hon. Mr Hanson.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: —the increase in employee jobs in South Australia was a massive 10.5 per cent.

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway: How big?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: 10.5 per cent. The Australian figure was a mere—but still impressive—7.9 per cent. It does not reach the 'massive' descriptor. The next highest was Western Australia at 9.2 and, sadly, for understandable reasons, declining to an increase of 6.3 per cent in the Labor-managed state of Victoria.

I am delighted that in terms of jobs growth, from the pits of the pandemic, the middle of April, when we were most impacted, through to the most recent figures in February—a 10.5 per cent increase in jobs. The other important indicator, which I have indicated before—

The Hon. J.E. Hanson interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Hanson is out of order.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: —where both South Australia and Western Australia jostle with each other for the most impressive performance, is actually the change in employee wages. That is important, because wages are in essence a measure of the available income that households have got to spend or not to spend. Impressively, the two clubhouse leaders are again Western Australia and South Australia.

Australia's growth in employee wages since the bottom of the pandemic, the pits of the pandemic in mid April last year, was a 6.3 per cent increase, which is still quite impressive. South Australia's increase was 8.5 per cent, Western Australia at 9.5 per cent, so the two clubhouse leaders are South Australia and our comrades in the west, in Western Australia. The laggards in this particular measure, which is a critical measure in terms of what income households have got—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: The Treasurer is not being helped by loud conversations on his own bench. The Treasurer should continue.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: —was that Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania all have increases less than the national average, with a 5 in front of it, and Queensland at 6.4, which is in and around about the national average. So wrapping that up, as I said, the issues that people outside this bubble that we inhabit for a number of days in a year—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The continuing conversations between the crossbench and the government backbench are not helping the Treasurer.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: Mr President—

The Hon. C. Bonaros interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: The important issues of both employee jobs growth and wages growth show that on the most recent figures, talking about February this year—not going back into last year and historical records—the recent figures, the contemporaneous figures in terms of how the economy is going, show a very healthy South Australian recovery.

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