The Rann government handed down its budget last week--several months late. It has been favourabley received as Treasurer Kevin Foley had emphasised increased spending in health, education and law and order ($1.56 billion), which is to be paid for out of costcutting---reducing the numbers in the public service (1600 over four years). This is at a time when the SA's revenue boom has peaked and the state faces economic growth lower (2.5 per cent) than the national average (3.25 per cent) over the next decade.

Atchinson

We have a global wine glut, an embattled car industry, manufacturing jobs going offshore, drought, a declining and ageing population despite SA being granted "regional status" for migration purposes. The economy is increasingly reliant on defence and the expansion in mining by BHP Billiton at its Olympic Dam operation at Roxy Downs. SA is still primarily a small business state and there were few measures for business.

The editorial in the Australian Financial Review says that:

Unless the state government creates conditions in which business can create jobs and lure people back, the outlook will remain ordinary...Like Victoria in the early 1990s SA has to pedal harder than the other states just to keep up. Unlike Victoria's political leaders of the 1990s SA Premier Mike Rann and Mr Foley are failing to see this.