ADULT LITERACY

Ms THOMPSON (Reynell) (15:54): I rise today to thank The Advertiser, which is an unusual thing indeed, for an article it carried on Tuesday 6 April, headed 'The problem facing millions of workers: can't read, can't write'. It stated:

An astonishing four million adults in the workforce have poor language, literacy and numeracy skills and cannot understand the meaning of some everyday words. These workers are typically in labour-intensive and low-level service jobs but their inability to follow basic instructions and warnings is causing a safety and productivity nightmare. Among the phrases too difficult for some workers are 'hearing protection' and 'personal protective equipment is required', according to a report by Skills Australia for the Rudd government. The words that many do not understand include: immediately, authorised, procedure, recommended, experience, required, optional, deliberate, isolation, and mandatory.

I invite The Advertiser to undertake a campaign to support adult literacy in the way it has worked so well in supporting young children's reading. It is very difficult for somebody like The Advertiser to do this, because if people do not have literacy skills they are presumably not reading The Advertiser, and in fact I know that the circulation figures for The Advertiser in my area are not high; so they have a double reason to do this. The Advertiser might like to do, however, as I have been doing, and try to identify people who are taking action to overcome their poor literacy skills, tell some of their stories and publish them, in the hope that their friends, family and neighbours who have recognised that people are struggling will encourage them to embark on some of the excellent programs that are now available to help deal with this issue of adults not having literacy skills that are now required for the workforce.

I would like to commend a number of the unions who, as part of the award restructuring process recognise, particularly in manufacturing, that workers, having been told for many years to leave their brains at the factory gates and just do as they were told, lost skills that they had. Some may not have been able to read very competently when they left school, but many others could read quite competently but, when you are not in an environment that requires regular reading, it is like any other skill, you lose it. The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, for instance, in the development of the Vehicle Industry Certificate, focused on ensuring that workers had the literacy skills that they needed for the modern workforce. As it happens, that was very fortunate when the tragedy of Mitsubishi closing arose, because those workers were better equipped to look for more jobs.

I would like to remind people of the literacy programs that are available from just about every community centre in the state, and certainly in my area, where literacy skills are required and funded by the Adult and Community Education program. The minister knows that I always want more funding for ACE, so there is nothing new. I would also like to pay tribute to some of the people who talked to me about what they are doing about their literacy. These people are participating in the meaningful adult schooling transitions program that is being held at Christies Beach High School to support adults being able to engage in education, get their SACE or do whatever they like in ways that will reward their lives. Some of the stories are of Anna, John, Trish, Assunta and Des.

John's story is particularly interesting, because he defies all the myths about people who cannot read and write. John left school at 14, went into a bricklayer's apprenticeship and was so successful in his trade that he was able to buy houses for each of his seven children. Yet when he retired he decided that his priority was to learn to read so that he could read a newspaper and go to the library and borrow a book. John told us of how he had been hiding his status of not being able to read for many years. He would have to invent an excuse when he was at the bank and could not fill in a form, to take it home for his wife to undertake. He and the other students agreed they had become socially isolated as they hid their problem.