DOME Funding

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:18): I will ask a question to the minister for industry and skills. Why did the then shadow minister, the member for Unley, state at an annual general meeting of DOME that the organisation is an important service for unemployed mature age South Australians only to cut funding when in government? With your leave and that of the house—

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: Point of order.

The SPEAKER: There is a point of order. With respect, I can see where this is going.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: You need to seek leave first before you insert fact or argument.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! If I can finish, the leader obviously is seeking to insert a statement. It would be easier if you could seek leave to do that and then you hopefully will be granted that leave. So if you would like to proceed on that basis, I will let you do that.

Mr MALINAUSKAS: Yes, I was seeking leave, Mr Speaker.

The SPEAKER: Yes, but before that point—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Minister for Transport! Is leave granted for the minister to insert a statement?

Leave granted.

The SPEAKER: Let's have it from the start. Leave has been granted.

Mr MALINAUSKAS: Do you want leave or the question?

The SPEAKER: Leave has been granted. Ask the question, please, if it is so desirable.

Mr MALINAUSKAS: The question is: did the shadow minister state at an annual general meeting of DOME that the organisation is an important service for unemployed mature age South Australians only to cut the funding when in government? In the 2018 Skilling Australia submission DOME stated that if it does not receive funding support it will, and I quote:

…close and South Australia will lose a unique service that has been acknowledged by minister Pisoni at DOME's AGM as an important service for unemployed mature age South Australians.

The SPEAKER: I am going to allow that question. It could elicit a broad answer because there were several facets to it.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI (Unley—Minister for Innovation and Skills) (14:20): And funding is still available to DOME, as I expressed earlier.

Mr Malinauskas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Leader!

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: There are two sources of funding available today.

Mr Malinauskas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Leader! You have asked your question, leader.

Mr Picton interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Kaurna!

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: When I addressed the AGM, which I think was about five or six years ago—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: They are really desperate over there on that side of the chamber. It's a different time I have to say, too, Mr Speaker. It is now 2020. However, there are two buckets of money—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: There are two income streams available—

Mr Brown interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Playford can leave for the remainder of question time.

The honourable member for Playford having withdrawn from the chamber:

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: —to DOME and organisations like DOME. There is the space the federal government has now taken ownership of. They can go there for funding—and my department has been working with them to encourage them to do that—and they can work with the state government to get behind our Skilling South Australia program to make sure that mature age workers have the skills that industry wants to buy. And we have commitments from industry that they will train South Australians and they will train mature South Australians because they see the value that mature South Australians bring to their businesses.

The aged-care sector is one of those sectors. The cybersecurity sector is another sector. There are a number of mature age workers who have finished on the ASC site will be starting an upskilling program to increase their digital skills with Flinders University, another project that the state government and the federal government have been working together on.

So there are a plenty of opportunities for DOME to get behind the government program and deliver the government's skills agenda. We are looking for partners outside of government. We have set up eight industry skills councils. Remember those over there? They were the ones that you cut about seven or eight years ago—

The SPEAKER: I did not cut them. Minister, direct your remarks to the Chair.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: —and, of course, not recognising that they played an important role in making sure that the government knew where to put its money. Well, we learnt where to put the money, and that is with industry, acknowledging that there is a cost for skills training. Yes, there is an off-the-job training cost, and we are funding that. We have expanded the Subsidised Training List. Over 800 courses now are subsidised through this training list, and they are available to all ATOs that are registered with my department.

Contrast that with what we inherited: 340 courses only. Only 30 per cent available to those outside the TAFE system. As you can see, we have expanded the choice, we have expanded the flexibility, and what do mature workers need? They need flexibility. They don't want to be treated like 17 or 18 year olds under a one size fits all, and Skilling South Australia has delivered a bespoke program that has got results.

Don't take my word for it: look it up on the NCVER table. It's all there: a 107 per cent increase here in South Australia in the first 12 months of the Skilling South Australia program. South Australian workers and businesses will come back stronger and better after this COVID-19 pandemic because of the work we started when we were elected to office in 2018.

The SPEAKER: The leader can have one more, then the member for Newland.