RESOURCES AND ENGINEERING SKILLS ALLIANCE

Mrs VLAHOS (Taylor) (14:46): My question is to the Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills. Can the minister inform the house about how the South Australian government is supporting the mining industry by promoting skill development?

The Hon. G. PORTOLESI (Hartley—Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills, Minister for Science and Information Economy) (14:46): I thank the honourable member for this question and acknowledge her work in this area. All of us in this place acknowledge that education and training is absolutely critical to ensuring that we are as a state well placed to meet our state's workforce needs going into the future. It has been suggested that between 2010 and 2015, for instance, we may need up to 10,000 additional qualifications in the mining and engineering sector. This is complicated by the backdrop to all of this which is the fact that we are dealing with fluctuating commodity and currency prices.

The state government is very clear—and the Premier talked about this, this week in fact—about making this sector a key priority, one of our seven, along with advanced manufacturing. We also have a number of initiatives in this area including our Skills for All reforms and the STEM Strategy, our science, technology, engineering and maths. We are also investing over $200 million in vocational education and training infrastructure, including the $38 million mining and engineering centre at the TAFESA Regency campus.

That is why I was very pleased earlier today to attend the Resource and Engineering Skills Alliance Skills and Workforce Summit for this year, a very important summit with a very practical and action-based focus that is bringing together key leaders in this important industry to look at resources and engineering workforce challenges and, as I said, workshopping practical solutions.

I was very pleased to have the opportunity to speak to a number of participants—in fact, I think the Premier gave the keynote address, and opened the conference this morning—and to hear firsthand about the challenges of training and recruiting staff. They also asked me, and I was very pleased to launch their website, Hot Rubble.

An honourable member: Appropriately.

The Hon. G. PORTOLESI: Appropriately, yes. The website is a dedicated career resource aimed at connecting people. I have to say, having looked at the website, it is first class. It provides extensive information about all aspects of this industry—students, teachers, parents, and people in the sector who are looking to upskill themselves. I offer my sincere congratulations to RESA, I look forward to learning of the solutions as well as the issues that they have identified, and I wish them all the very best.