Vocational Education and Training

Mr WINGARD (Mitchell) (14:56): My question is to the new father and the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure. Given the significant infrastructure announced for South Road, will TAFE SA be able to meet the demand for appropriately skilled workers now that private training providers, such as the Civil Contractors Federation SA, who currently meet much of the demand, have had their training services defunded?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Minister Assisting the Minister for Planning, Minister Assisting the Minister for Housing and Urban Development) (14:57): Thank you to the member for Mitchell for that very kind introduction to that question and also the question itself. The Premier made this point a little earlier today in question time when he made reference to the fact that we are spending an extraordinary amount of money on infrastructure over the next four years. I realise that some people obviously think that that's a false economy, but we think it is important to do—

Mr van Holst Pellekaan: He's asking about training.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Well, I'm interested that some members of the opposition front bench think that is not a false economy when the Leader of the Opposition thinks it is a false economy; but, anyway, we saw the divisions laid large on the front page of The Advertiser this morning, Mr Speaker. Nonetheless, we are spending over $2 billion over the next four years on infrastructure projects.

The CCF has obviously made their views known publicly, but given that we are spending in the order of $2 billion on construction projects over the forward estimates and given that in concert with that spend we also require successful tenderers to have very stringent requirements about local workers and local participation in building those projects, I'm interested to hear from the CCF how, in the event of the government spending this money and in the event that we require the contractors to use local workers, they also require the government to fund the training for all of the workers many of whom will be transitioning from recently completed significant construction projects that we've seen around South Australia that we've also invested in. Anyway, I will wait to hear from the CCF and see what their points are.