As an ex Safstrine I have to agree. The people SA should hang on to are leaving in droves. In the next 5 years Holden will close, the ASC will downsize and thousands of support industry workers will lose their jobs. From next year Moomba gas will cost the 'international' price since it can go to the export LNG plants in Queensland. That will push up electricity prices (Torrens Island power station is the country's biggest gas user) making it even harder to attract new industry.

The stupid thing is that SA is potentially wealthy as it has perhaps a third of the world's easily mined uranium. Some 70 new nuclear power stations are under construction around the world. Japan seems set to restart many of its nukes due to the cost of fossil fuel imports. Yet bizarrely Olympic Dam mine cannot get the power and water it needs to expand. It seems SA is being run by a clique of dreamers who want things to stay as they are even as it disappears under their gaze.

What about something really radical, cut costs! Public service pensions not increased every year but reduced, in line with how our "Super" is supposed to work. Cap pensions at a max of say $70k. Cap salaries at $100k. This would save millions, anyway eventually this will happen when we hit the inevitable world depression.
Starve these parasites out or if you prefer pay them what they are worth.
Teachers do not bother me with your pig like squealing! You have done a demonstrably rubbish job for the last 40 years and you would be top of my list to be rewarded for your efforts by having your pay cut.

The mutiny of the sheep - I'd like to see that day: Bah Bah, we shall no longer eat grass...

You raise the right questions but your answers are silly.
The only way to reduce unemployment is to bring cost of labour in line with the market. Make the cost of labour such that a profit can be made from the employment of labour.

When the safety net is so high that the rewards for work are not substantially above the receipt of unemployment benefits, the young will not work.
Eventually we will not be able to keep the safety net at such heights and the "cure" will come in the form of inflation and poverty-- the Argentinian "cure".

The cost of labour?

This is always a contentious issue, that it doesn't matter if a worker is paid $1 a day or $100 a day.

There will always be some who will still complain that a $1 a day is still too high.

Saw an interesting cartoon about foreign workers, working in the gulf states and how the employer will splurge money on themselves and family members, yet fail to pay their employees.

Not do sure about 'cost of labour' being a primary factor Old Man.

SA wages across the board are 10-15 per cent lower than the rest of the country. It's actually one of the reasons why employers from interstate advertise in SA - they trump local wages. We have kids working off award in hospitality for as little as $7.00 ph. Less than 30 per cent of the state's workforce is unionised.

I liaise with employers every day and none are talking about a wages blow out. They're talking about moving interstate or closing down.

I probably should have written that this economic contraction has been happening for 30 years or so, with repeals every now and then. It's both a local and macroeconomic phenomenon.