Apprenticeships and Traineeships

Ms LUETHEN (King) (16:13): My question is to the Minister for Innovation and Skills. Can the minister update the house on how the Marshall Liberal government is working with industry and the training sector to create jobs for South Australians?

The Hon. D.G. PISONI (Unley—Minister for Innovation and Skills) (16:13): I thank the member for King for her interest, her strong advocacy for her constituents in King and her particular interest in small business and jobs. It's a big small business electorate, and she is out there all the time knocking on doors of small businesses and feeding back to me what is important to them, and we are acting on that. One of those things we are acting on is ensuring we have the skills that South Australian businesses need to grow.

We are leading a skills-led job recovery here in South Australia. We are working directly with industry and employers to grow South Australia's skilled workforce. South Australia continues to lead the nation in 'earn as you learn' training. These are paid traineeships and apprenticeships, something they completely forgot about when they were in office.

Some recent Skilling South Australia projects include the Naval Shipbuilding College designer traineeship, $510,000 in skills investment supporting a collaboration between the Naval Shipbuilding College, the Naval Group Australia, BAE Systems and several South Australian SMEs to develop a customised traineeship program designed for the South Australian naval shipbuilding industry.

Trainees will undertake a Diploma of Engineering—Technical, specially contextualised for shipbuilding and delivered by TAFE SA, while undertaking work placements with industry primes and their supply chain companies. Of course, Naval Group aren't cutting steel right now, but those skills are being developed to design that work through the use of their supply chains because we can't wait until the physical work starts for this training to start. It needs to start now, so we are working with Naval Group to that.

This investment with Naval Group means that these jobs are filled by South Australians because currently that skill doesn't exist in South Australia. The alternative was to do nothing—the common practice of those opposite—and then those skills would have to be brought in from interstate or overseas, but we want those skills delivered by South Australians and that's why we have made that investment.

Another partnership is the Apprentice Today, Chef for Life project supporting 100 new apprentices to undertake Certificate III in Commercial Cookery and Certificate III in Hospitality delivered by Quality Training and Hospitality College. Valued at $480,000, the project is addressing skills shortages in the food, wine, tourism and hospitality sectors.

That has certainly come to light with the interest that South Australians and other Australians have in visiting our regional hospitality businesses in particular and the demand for those skills in regional South Australia and even, of course, in metropolitan Adelaide. This is assisting businesses to meet their skills needs and to promote their business growth post the COVID-19 pandemic.

Of course, we are also working with those who are delivering the training to ensure that they have the skills they need to deliver quality training here in South Australia. Friday 16 April was the launch of the Ignite Series, an eight-day program that commenced with the networking and collaboration event, Ideas Exchange. The discussion explored opportunities in building capability, funded activity agreements, JobTrainer, microcredentials and new accredited courses, national skills reform, Skilling South Australia, the Skills Commission, Training Priority projects and VET for School Students, another very exciting project from the Minister for Education.