STATE ECONOMY
767. Mr H.T. JONES to the Treasurer:
I refer to the McGowan Labor
government's world-leading response to COVID-19 and its efforts in
supporting business, creating jobs and driving economic growth. Can the Premier
update the house on what the latest national accounts figures show about Western
Australia's economic performance during the COVID-19 pandemic and
outline how it has been this state that has underpinned the rest of the
country?
Mr M.
McGOWAN replied:
I thank the member for Darling Range
for the question.
It is true that Western Australia
has the strongest economy in Australia. This has been confirmed by the
Australian Bureau of Statistics' state accounts figures for the last
financial year. It puts beyond doubt that Western Australia has led the country
and supported the rest of the country. That was, as I said, the ABS's
state accounts figures for the last financial year. To quote it, our economy
grew by 3.1 per cent. The domestic economy did the heavy lifting. That is
business investment, household consumption and dwelling investment.
We
are now in our fifth consecutive year of a growing economy. Obviously, when we
arrived in office, the economy was in recession under the last
government, but we have restored it back to growth. In fact, the only state
that did not go into recession during the COVID pandemic was Western Australia.
This means that for the last three years, Western Australia's economy
has grown by a cumulative 7.9 per cent—the strongest of all the
mainland states. As I said, we avoided a recession, whilst our competitors or
our colleagues in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria all went into recession during the COVID pandemic. As we
understand, this government, despite the efforts of the Liberal Party,
managed to keep COVID out of Western Australia.
Since the start of the pandemic, WA
has accounted for 23 per cent of the nation's growth, with only 10 per
cent of the nation's population—the largest contribution to
Australia. Of course, we receive only 70� in the dollar back for our GST. We
continue to fund the other states. We continue to provide much company tax
revenue, which goes to other states. Of course, the other day we announced our
resources community investment initiative, which was a terrific thing, by which
we will secure support from the resources industry for important state
government legacy projects. The only people who opposed that were those in the
Liberal Party. Steve Thomas went out there and criticised it. I really do not
understand the way members opposite think. We will have secured hundreds of
millions, if not billions, of dollars,
hopefully, by the end of this project that we are engaged in for the people of
the state, yet they go on to
criticise it. I do not understand the way they think sometimes. I would have
left that one alone if I were them or even said, ''This is good.''
Sadly, that is not the way they act.
The good news is that the figures
that came out the other day show that Western Australia is once again leading
the country.