Northern Connector

Mr ODENWALDER (Little Para) (15:12): On International Women's Day several weeks ago, I was really delighted to attend a celebration of women in construction at the NorthHub offices on Port Wakefield Road. As members will know, I have been involved with the Northern Connector project since just after its inception.

The Northern Connector, for those who have not heard, will be a six-lane, 15.5-kilometre motorway providing a vital freight and commuter link between the Northern Expressway, the South Road Superway and the Port River Expressway. This will of course benefit both industry and residents in the northern suburbs. The Australian government, to its credit, is committing $788 million to the project, with $197 million from the South Australian government and the project is scheduled for completion in December 2019.

But its importance as an infrastructure project is not limited to its utility and its value to the economy in terms of freight and efficiency of transit. It is also of vital importance in terms of providing work, training and upskilling into South Australians, particularly those in the northern suburbs and particularly those who, like many in Elizabeth, have been displaced by the auto industry and its supply chains.

As head of the Northern Connector Jobs Taskforce, it has been my role over the last year or so to work with the community, businesses, council, training providers, government and the Office of the Industry Advocate as well as the Holden Transition Centre and the broader Holden supply chain to ensure that, of the 480 full-time equivalent jobs supported by this project, at least half the workers employed on this project live in the northern suburbs.

It is early days, but I am pleased to report to the house that Lendlease is more than exceeding this target, as well as its other targets, including 90 per cent South Australian employment. At present, more than a third of their staff are from other key target groups including local people with barriers to employment, displaced automotive workers, Aboriginal people and apprentices and trainees.

While it is not a specific target, Lendlease are also exceeding expectations with the number of women they have working on the Northern Connector project. Indeed, women are being employed at almost twice the national rate for civil construction. More than 21 per cent of positions across a range of roles, such as civil engineering, plant operation, safety, environment and administration, have so far been filled by women. This may not seem a lot at first, but it compares to the national average of 11.7 per cent across the construction industry.

Importantly, nearly half the engineers recruited in the project's first graduate intake for 2017 were women. It was an absolute pleasure to meet some of these women who have been recruited to work in this typically male-dominated industry, and it was great to have the Minister for Transport and other local MPs out there to celebrate on that morning.

I was also out at NorthHub again last week for the graduation of the first six certificate II civil construction course trainees. This was a course offered to a number of Lendlease construction worker employees who have made the transition to the construction industry from other industries. Of the six, I am very pleased to say that four were directly from Holden and have been helped along this path by the Holden transition centre. There was a story on the Channel 9 News about this very topic just last night.

The course itself was delivered by the Adelaide Training and Employment Centre (ATEC), which is located in the northern suburbs within the catchment area for the employment target, and it included safety and WH&S policies, measurements and calculations, operations of small plant and equipment, and the use of compact materials. The course also contained a practical component involving simulations of real site work—for example, measuring areas for compacting, setting string lines and the use of plate compactors.

It is really great to see the linkages built between the Northern Connector project, the Holden transition team, local registered training organisations and the government, bearing fruit. The Northern Connector project is setting new benchmarks in terms of local employment and local economic benefits, and I look forward to continuing working with both Lendlease and the Holden transition team over the next few years.