Skills Training

Mr COWDREY (Colton) (14:45): My question is to the Minister for Innovation and Skills. Can the minister update the house on how the Marshall Liberal government is supporting South Australia's skills training sector in response to COVID-19?

The Hon. D.G. PISONI (Unley—Minister for Innovation and Skills) (14:45): I thank the member for Colton for his question. His electorate has been affected enormously by COVID-19. The hospitality industry that was booming at Henley Square and other centres around the seat of Colton have been affected with closures as part of the protective processes that have been put in place for the people of South Australia against the virus. Of course, that has had an impact on the training sector because many of those businesses were training apprentices. They were training trainees in the hospitality sector: cookery, front of house and other areas in that sector.

This was very concerning for the government. We have learnt a lot about what industry needs since we have come to office because we have established eight industry skills councils, so we have a direct line of communication with industry, almost right down to the factory floor, right down to the kitchen bench, about what is going on in industry and what it is that they need and what are the barriers for their businesses to grow.

Of course, skills are a major barrier and we have been very successful with the changes that we have made, introducing Skilling South Australia into South Australia with a $200 million commitment with the federal and state governments to deliver more skills funding and more skills in South Australia. The last NCVER figures that were released demonstrated a 20.6 per cent growth in the number of commencements for the September quarter last year compared with 12 months earlier. That is after we have had a continual decline in commencements for apprenticeships under the previous government.

We are very pleased with the actions that we have taken so far to grow the skills opportunities for South Australians. The COVID-19 pandemic has set up new challenges, so we announced a $16 million package for non-government registered training organisations so they can continue to offer training for those apprentices who may not be engaged in the sector currently and also to make sure they don't lose their skill base, their lecturers, their trainers, for when the recovery starts to happen towards the end of the year.

We have worked with the non-government sector for the last two years to increase their delivery of skills training by 20 per cent. We don't want that to disappear. We are supporting the sector. The government's initiative will support the delivery of skills to continue to almost 48,000 students across the state, as well as new students. These are opportunities for students who want to move into some of those areas that are still in demand: aged care, disability care, what we describe as the care sector.

Over the next five years, we have nearly 5,000 vacancies in that space and there are vacancies right there, right now in that area. Food production is another area of opportunity for people to move into. There are job vacancies right through regional South Australia, in particular. I have been advised that for every job vacancy that is advertised in regional South Australia, 50 per cent of them remain unfilled, so there are skills needs there that we need to deliver on. This package will help us to keep those trainers in work and ready for that uptake.