PRIVATE MEMBERS' STATEMENTS 06

I rise, too, to make a few comments. A few weeks back the South Australian government attempted to pat themselves on the back for establishing Invest SA. In reality, they had re-established a program whose work was already being done by the Department for Trade and Investment. So what has this actually done for South Australia? It has actually taken the investment out of trade and investment, created more red tape and is less streamlined, and it has shifted the goalposts—and this is the alarming part of what the government has done. Previously, DTI targets required facilitating a value of foreign investment into South Australia. The word 'foreign' has now been removed in last year's budget target, which means it's a broken promise.

 

Labor told us that re-establishing Invest SA would create 4,000 new jobs every year. In actual fact, they only managed to create 800 jobs in the last 12 months, less than a quarter of their goal. In contrast, under the Liberals in 2021-22, DTI was directly responsible for half a billion dollars of foreign investment into South Australia, and the creation of 7,600 new jobs in 12 months. This was all while we were in the middle of a pandemic. Labor are riding on the coat-tails of a former Liberal government's strong trade policy and outlook, and their poor economic management means that having to shift the goalposts makes them a broken promise government.

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