SA businesses and Labor Opposition ask State Government for more stimulus funding for COVID-19 revival
Business groups and the Opposition have urged more stimulus spending to continue SA’s COVID-19 recovery – but the Treasurer says there’s already more than enough.
Coronavirus
Don't miss out on the headlines from Coronavirus. Followed categories will be added to My News.
- Two schools close as adult student tests positive to COVID-19
- Chief health officer Nicola Spurrier says coronavirus not going away
- South Australia’s unemployment rate highest in nation
More and quicker stimulus spending by the State Government is urgently needed to stop South Australia sliding even further behind the rest of Australia economically, according to business groups and the Labor Opposition.
The State Government has committed about $1bn so far in stimulus funding to help combat the effects of COVID-19, which, measured on a per capita basis, is the lowest in the nation.
Business SA chief executive Martin Haese said a lack of stimulus risked low growth and high unemployment.
Mr Haese said the government was risking “self perpetuating’’ existing problems of the highest unemployment rate in Australia and low economic growth if more was not done to help.
“If the State Government doesn’t accelerate the stimulus spending to support small business in the South Australian economy, they may exacerbate the economic decline, not improve it,’’ he said.
Mr Haese also cast doubt on whether the $1bn figure promoted by Treasurer Rob Lucas was accurate, as about $350m had been earmarked for pre-approved projects which were brought forward.
He said $1bn was not $1bn if “it’s not new expenditure”.
But Mr Lucas said the true figure for SA’s stimulus was closer to $2bn.
The State Government has regularly used the $1bn figure when talking about its contributions to stimulating the economy, but Mr Lucas said that number did not include payroll and land tax exemptions and deferrals, and $180m in grants to non-government schools.
Mr Lucas brushed off suggestions for further stimulus spending, saying it was unaffordable with the state budget running annual $2bn deficits and SA heading towards $30bn in debt.
“We think we are spending more than enough of their (taxpayers’) money at the moment, and the capacity to just write blank cheques for anyone other than the health budget isn’t really the way to run a state or a federal budget,’’ he said.
“You can’t do everything. You can’t save every job and you can’t save every business, but we can try and save as many jobs and as many businesses as we can.’’
Labor treasury spokesman Stephen Mullighan said opposition modelling showed South Australia’s $1bn stimulus spending package equated to $569 for every person in the state. In comparison, WA is spending $2040, Tasmania $1839, NSW $1675, Queensland $1172 and Victoria $905.
“When our economy and jobs market is the worst in the nation, there is no excuse for our state’s stimulus spending to be the lowest in the nation too,’’ Mr Mullighan said.
“No one will thank Steven Marshall and Rob Lucas for penny-pinching when our state needs all the support it can to get South Australians back to work.’’
Master Builders Association of South Australia director of policy Will Frogley said the State Government needed to support the industry when the federal $25,000 homebuilder grants program closed at the end of the year, as other states have done.