Cybersecurity

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (14:19): My question is to the Minister for Innovation and Skills. Can the minister update the house on how the state government is skilling South Australia's cybersecurity workforce?

The Hon. D.G. PISONI (Unley—Minister for Innovation and Skills) (14:19): I thank the member for Heysen for his question. It's a very important question because it's a very, very—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: —modern problem in Australia and, as a matter of fact, across the world. There is a recognised global shortage of cybersecurity professionals. The Marshall Liberal government is working with business, universities and training providers to develop a cybersecurity ecosystem here in South Australia to ensure we make the most of opportunities to advance our digital economy. We are growing local cybersecurity industry skills, focused on training and skilling the future cybersecurity workforce.

Under our Skilling South Australia program, we worked directly with industry to establish a selection of cybersecurity traineeships. These three separate streams of cyber-related traineeships have been designed here in South Australia. They include an industry cybersecurity traineeship, Cert IV in Cyber Security, which has been developed through the Department for Innovation and Skills and is delivered by MEGT and TAFE SA; public sector cybersecurity traineeships, Certificate IV in Cyber Security, which is being developed by the Office of the Commissioner for Public Sector Employment, GTOs and TAFE SA; and the Flexible Cyber Security Traineeship Pilot, which is a Certificate III in ICT and two components of the cybersecurity certificate, which is coming through our flexible apprenticeships pathway and being managed by my good colleague the education minister through our new pathways in vocational education through the school system, being delivered of course through the Department for Education, Maxima and again TAFE SA.

These new traineeships support broader workforce and skills pipeline initiatives, which are being designed to be delivered through the new Australian cyber collaboration centre (A3C) within Lot Fourteen here in Adelaide. The South Australian government has committed $8.9 million to develop the Australian cyber collaboration centre. The A3C will generate demand within the labour market for cybersecurity careers, develop innovative training to increase the numbers of trainees and graduates and improve employment outcomes for newly qualified and trained cybersecurity workers.

The state government also recently executed a memorandum of understanding with the MITRE Corporation in the US. The MITRE Corporation establishes public-private partnerships and operates federally funded research and development centres in the US, focusing on challenges to national security. The partnership between the A3C and MITRE will focus on protecting Australia's smart grid and advanced insider threat detection. The A3C will be launched in March and fully operational by July this year.