The State Liberals have labelled the Weatherill Government economically illiterate for predicting a surge in jobs in the mining industry in the middle of a collapse in commodity prices.

In the 12 months leading up to the Weatherill Government’s November 2014 prediction of an extra 5,000 jobs in the resources sector in South Australia commodity prices has already crashed by 25.6 per cent.

“Premier Weatherill’s claim that his 5,000 additional mining industry jobs will not be fulfilled because of a decline in commodity prices is blown out of the water by the fact commodity prices began collapsing two years before the Premier made the promise,” said Shadow Minister for Mineral Resources Dan van Holst Pellekaan.

“The collapse in employment in the mining sector in South Australia began 12 months before the promised jobs with a 22.2 per cent fall in jobs over that period of time.

“Premier Weatherill claimed yesterday that it is not his fault, that commodity prices have fallen away and that if they had known that would happen they would not have made the commitment.

“The Reserve Bank of Australia reports that a weighted average of resources prices including iron ore, copper, gold and oil fell every single month for each of the 12 months from December 2013 to November 2014

“Did the Premier not consider this fact when making his 5,000 new jobs promise or was he banking on divine intervention to turn the markets around?

“Premier Weatherill and Treasurer Koutsantonis made an irresponsible promise and have now been caught out trying to blame it on international commodity prices when they had been steadily falling for two years beforehand and have continued to do so.

“Even the most inexperienced analyst would have predicted the prices to continue to fall.”