Skills Training

Dr HARVEY (Newland) (14:45): My question is to the Minister for Innovation and Skills. Can the minister update the house on how the government is growing South Australia's skilled workforce and strengthening the economy?

The Hon. D.G. PISONI (Unley—Minister for Innovation and Skills) (14:46): I can do that because terrific news in the job figures today is a new record in the number of South Australians working: 855,400 South Australians. This is on top of last month's record number of South Australians working in South Australia. Of course, since the March election last year—

Mr Malinauskas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, leader!

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: —15,000 South Australians are in new jobs here in South Australia and 9,000 of those are full time. This is almost double the growth rate of what has been the average over the last 10 years. This is good news for South Australia because it shows that there is confidence in the business community. People don't employ on a full-time basis when they are not sure about what is happening around the corner.

South Australian businesses are now investing full time in their staff so they can train staff and build their businesses. We are helping business to train their staff with $200 million being spent on our Skilling South Australia program to enable industry to develop the skills it needs, within its own workforce, through our vocational education system. There is much more to do. We are obviously very pleased with today's figures of another record number of South Australians in work, but we know that there is more work to do.

Training is an important part of doing that and, of course, we were pleased to announce a couple of weeks ago that we have met the first year of our target: 13,000 new trainees and apprenticeships here in South Australia. We saw the story that was generated through Anglicare earlier in the week, that the jobs available in South Australia and the skills available in South Australia don't match up, so there are many people who aren't qualified with the skills needed by industry. That's why we need to make this investment.

We need to ask ourselves: how did that happen? How did we get ourselves into this situation? You only have to look at the record of the previous government: 66 per cent drop-off in the number of trainees and apprentices over the last seven years—a 66 per cent drop-off—then, of course, no policy in the lead-up to the next election from those opposite, no policy on apprentices and trainees. That is the position we are in at the moment and that is the position we are rectifying.

We are seeing green shoots in the economy and in skills and training here in South Australia. For the first time in seven years we saw a growth in the March NCVER figures of apprenticeships and trainees here in South Australia—the first time in seven years. There's a lot more work to do. Today's figures show that we are delivering for South Australians, and we will continue to do so.