STATE ECONOMY
760. Mr D.C. NALDER to the Premier:
Could the Premier please confirm
that in the June quarter, the state's domestic economy contracted by
six per cent, which is the worst figure on record, and is worse than
Queensland, South Australia, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital
Territory; and, if so, how can this government claim that Western Australia has
the strongest economy on the planet?
Mr M.
McGOWAN replied:
I thank the shadow Treasurer for the
question. I am a little bit perplexed, because I thought the member for Carine
was the shadow Treasurer. He is always out there talking about financial
issues. I thought the member for Carine was
the shadow Treasurer. I am a bit perplexed that it turns out that the member
for Bateman is the shadow Treasurer.
Obviously, when the pandemic hit, we
had a significant reduction in economic activity. The economic activity in Western
Australia, every state in Australia and every country in the world went down
significantly. If we look at the United States or Great Britain, the decline
was far greater than that in Western Australia. From memory, the figures in Great Britain were somewhere around a 20
per cent decline in economic activity; the United States' figures
were around the nine per cent mark. In Western Australia, there was a significant
contraction over one quarter. Since then, of
course, our economy has been growing. We are the only state in Australia to
have had economy growth. We did not go into recession, unlike every
other state in Australia. I am pleased that the member has asked me this
question; it allows me to reveal a range of things to the house. In fact, for
jobs growth, in the last month, in August, our figures increased by 32 000
jobs; 70 per cent of all jobs lost in that pandemic contraction and 90 per cent
of the hours worked returned to the economy, so that means more people with
more hours of work. We have had the strongest land sales and housing
construction in many years. We have had the strongest business and consumer
confidence in Australia. We have had the strongest retail and car sales in a long
time, and our hospitality figures have been extremely strong. One needs only to
go to shopping precincts and centres and businesses around the state today to see that those figures are borne
out by the actual experience of businesses in the community. For some
reason, the Liberal Party does not seem to understand all these things. We went
through a very, very dark period when coronavirus hit, but because Western Australia
has been coronavirus free and because the state government launched a recovery
plan and encouraged business investment and activity within the state, we are
now travelling better than anywhere else in Australia and potentially the
world.