CEDA Economic and Policy Outlook
On 28 February 2024 the Chairman of the SA Productivity Commission, Mr Adrian Tembel, spoke at the Committee for Economic Development in Australia’s Economic and Policy Outlook. In his talk he highlighted that whilst recent South Australian economic growth had been strong and outperformed the national average, inflation had eroded much of the benefits of this growth for household disposable incomes. He also pointed out that there was a strong cyclical element to the recent strength of the South Australian economy, with a combination of good seasons for broadacre agriculture, and the strong growth in social assistance spending through the NDIS underpinning much of the growth. He went on the caution that if we are to deliver strong growth and higher wages in an ongoing sense this needs to be underpinned by structural changes in the state’s economy, particularly significant increases in innovation and skills. To achieve this he called for a redirection of expenditure towards increasing performance in the education and skills of our people, the level of R&D and the use of that R&D to innovate in businesses, and lifting public sector and business performance.