Shadow Treasurer Rob Lucas said today Treasurer Koutsantonis had been caught out in a
series of embarrassing blunders trying to defend his self-proclaimed ‘God’s Work’ budget.
Today Mr Koutsantonis claimed his supposed jobs budget last year had created 6000 new
FULL TIME jobs.
However the independent ABS (Publication 6202.0 – Labour Force, Australia, Table 7) has
confirmed that in fact there has been a loss of 956 full time jobs since the budget and the creation of 6921 part time jobs, some of which involve people working for only one hour per week.
“The fact that even after last year’s supposed ‘jobs budget’ South Australia still
has the highest unemployment rate in the nation is consistent with these
figures,” said Mr Lucas.
“Given that jobs is the most important issue in South Australia it is clear that Mr
Koutsantonis has been deliberately misleading everyone about the supposed
success of his policies.
“In another embarrassing budget blunder Mr Koutsantonis told the media his proposed
1.5% p.a. wage increase for public servants over the next three years was ‘above inflation’.
“However he obviously forgot that page 100 of his own budget papers shows that inflation
for the next three years will be well above 1.5% – in fact 1.75% in 16/17, 2.25% in 17/18 and 2.5% in 18/19!
“Perhaps he is expecting a miracle from his ‘God’s Work’ Budget when 1.5% actually ends
up being greater than 2.5%!
“Again it is embarrassing when the State’s Treasurer doesn’t even understand his own
budget and even worse sets about deliberately misleading people about key
aspects of the budget.”