The Committee for Adelaide want to pay TAFE students to stay, but Caleb Bond believes they should be aiming to make SA ‘great again’

With the SA brain drain talent problem being met with a financial incentive to stay in the state, Caleb Bond writes the problems stem much deeper than a quick money fix.

Is South Australia so bad that young people must be bribed not to leave the state?

The Committee for Adelaide seems to think so.

They quite literally want to pay young TAFE and university graduates to stay in SA and take up full-time employment.

It feels a bit like when a wife threatens to leave because she’s miserable and the husband offers to take her on an overseas holiday if she stays.

That’s insulting on a number of fronts.

It is an acknowledgment that something is wrong because you’re trying to provide an incentive for her not to find a better man who will actually pay her some attention.

And it cements the relationship as purely transactional – the fundamental problems of the marriage won’t change but you’re offering a shiny new toy that might distract for a while.

In the back of her head, though, she knows nothing will change and she’ll again grow bored.

The basics here are quite obvious – young people routinely leave Adelaide for employment opportunities or the brighter lights of a bigger city.

As I have written multiple times in these pages, this is a reality that will, to some degree, never change.

You’d be naive to think young people don’t want to spread their wings.

But if you want them to stay in Adelaide – and you should – offering them a financial bonus is nothing more than an expensive and drawn-out divorce settlement.

Is SA so bad that young people need to be bribed to stay in the state? Writes Caleb Bond.

The committee’s five-point plan to “attract and retain South Australia’s future workforce” proposes that 20-25 year-olds who study in SA should be given a monetary bonus if they take up two or three years of full-time employment.

All that does is encourage them to stay for two or three years.

Any kid with a brain would pocket the cash, hang around for a few years and then bugger off to a bigger city with a better-paid job.

Then you have to repeat the same process all over again with a new group of youths who’ll do exactly the same thing.

The Baby Bonus may have promoted a short-term boost but Australia’s fertility rate is now lower than it has ever been.

A crumbling house with a new coat of paint is still a crumbling house.

You have to really want to stay in a city to not leave and that’s about much more than money.

It’s about culture, liveability, lifestyle and job availability – all of which lead to happiness.

Happy South Australians won’t leave the state because they won’t find anything better elsewhere.

The sole aim of the state government and the Committee for Adelaide should be to make SA great again – a place so good that no one wants to leave and outsiders want to move in.

Ask any young South Australian why they left and they will almost universally say it was for better employment opportunities.

Many who leave would like to return when they’re ready to settle down but, again, they can’t find a comparable job in Adelaide.

It is businesses, not employees, who need to be encouraged to set up shop and stay in SA.

Provide the jobs that young South Aussies – and Aussies more broadly – want and the rest will look after itself.

The Committee for Adelaide knows there’s a problem.

But, like all who have come before them, they’re refusing to acknowledge exactly what it is.