Chef Employment

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (15:17): My question is to the Premier. What evidence does the Premier have that suggests jobs for chefs are no longer immediately available? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Ms BEDFORD: In an answer to a question I asked on Tuesday 7 September about the postponement of the upgrade of the Le Cordon Bleu school at Regency Park, the house was informed 'jobs that are immediately available are the focus at the moment', but I notice and draw to the house's attention that jobs on Seek for chefs are over 8,000 places and that the immigration minister, Alex Hawke, has announced chefs as one of the occupations to now be included on the Priority Migration Skilled Occupation List.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (15:18): I think the member is quite right: there are skills shortages right across South Australia and many of them do exist in areas like the qualification the member just spoke about, becoming a chef. This is one of the reasons why we have worked with the federal government to put in well in excess now of $200 million to get young people into vocational education and training. Many of those are in that hospitality setting and of course these are very much based within the work environment.

I think she raises a very good point. These are areas that we need to address. One of the areas that the Minister for Innovation and Skills is constantly focused on is how we get more vocational education and training into our schools and how we actually get school-based apprenticeships and traineeships in place. I think we are making progress, but one of the things that has occurred because of the border arrangements that are in place that need to be in place because of the coronavirus at the moment is that this has exacerbated the situation with particular vocations, and one of those is chefs.

We did bring in a large number of chefs. Each year we have had, if you like, chronic shortages of these skills in South Australia, right around the country in fact, for a long period of time. These were often filled by people who came in on a temporary visa. Some of these people were ultimately able to move towards permanent residency if they met the criteria, but she is right: this is an area that we really are focusing on as a government.