MALCOLM KING: Jeremy Roberts’ acute assessment (South Australia: A State in Denial, InDaily, June 20, 2013) of South Australia’s economic and demographic prospects is spot-on.

The economic drivers of the state, especially in the construction and manufacturing sectors, are crumbling. This is not because of structural change, but because of global forces. Much of what we make can be made cheaper overseas. The State Government’s push to move manufacturing goods up the value chain is the right way to go but it will take time for businesses to retool and for new markets to come online. There is an associated problem but you’ll only pick it if you’ve lived outside South Australia for some years. Whenever there are mass sackings or grim economic news, it seems Farmers Union puts out a new ice coffee TV advertisement hailing all things Croweater. I facetiously call it the “ice coffee recovery”.

There is little constructive analysis of what serious economic contraction and lack of industry diversity means to the man and woman in the street. It can be summed up in one word “jobs”. True environmental protest movements are important but many I read about have no green runs on the board at all. The most dangerous groups are the anti-populationists who want to wind back economic growth and create “Fortress Adelaide”. They are the voices of austerity masked in environmental verbiage.

Roberts is right. The state faces its most serious economic crisis since Federation and it requires action. It’s pointless whining about what divides us, if what unites us is standing together in a dole queue.

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