The South Australian Council of Social Service says today’s State Budget with its focus on jobs and revenue is welcome but we are disappointed there is no attention on opportunities for growth through the digital economy, no real initiatives directed to helping low income households, nor any funding for prevention activities in health and child protection.
“We welcome the extension of job accelerator grants and the Future Jobs Fund, and locking in and extending payroll tax concessions for small business,” says Ross Womersley, SACOSS CEO.
“South Australia still has the nation’s highest rate of unemployment and we hope these measures go a long way to boosting the economy and job creation.
“Access to secure work that enables you to earn a living wage remains fundamental to enabling people to escape poverty.
“The real test will be to see if small businesses across the state capitalise on the incentives that have been provided here by employing more people.”
“In a similar vein, we also welcome the Budget's focus on infrastructure projects. While we recognise the investments in renewing our hospitals, we are extremely disappointed that there are zero complimentary investments in services and activities that would prevent people from ever requiring hospitalisation.”
“We note similarly that while there is additional funding for the child protection system, none of this appears to be directed towards intervening early to ensure that children and young people never have to enter into the system in the first place.”
“We do welcome the small investments in justice with the Work Ready, Release Ready program for people preparing to leave prison, and the additional funding to assist offenders to reintegrate into the community.”
Revenue
SACOSS has for a number of years now argued the importance of ensuring sufficient revenue is available for the services we all need.
“There is no doubt that this budget would have been in deficit without the two new vital revenue measures: the Major Bank Levy and the Conveyance Duty Surcharge on foreign residential property buyers,” says Ross Womersley.
The digital economy
We were very disappointed that the Budget made no acknowledgement of the impact of digital technologies on our economy and our society. Digital developments have been one of the key factors leading to job losses in manufacturing and the car industry. And digital technologies will be a key driver of future job opportunities.
“SA is the most digitally-disadvantaged mainland state, and if we are to position ourselves to capitalise on opportunities for economic and social development, we must enhance our skills and capacity, as well as infrastructure in this area.”
“This remains an imperative for our Government and should be a major area of attention and investment.”
SACOSS also recognises that the Government has made big announcements in relation to its energy plan and we remain hopeful that this will result in increasing the reliability, stability and affordability of our energy supply.
While we welcome the indexation of the energy concession, we maintain that it is essential for the concession to be restructured in order to be fit for purpose and provide better protections for vulnerable South Australians by moving from a flat rate to a concession based on a percentage of the bill.