Defence Workforce Plan

Ms THOMPSON (Davenport) (16:20): My question is to the Deputy Premier. How is the state government supporting defence industry workforce development in South Australia?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Minister for Climate, Environment and Water, Minister for Workforce and Population Strategy) (16:21): I am delighted to bring the parliament up-to-date with the work that we have been doing on a defence industry workforce. Members will remember that there was a task force established across the federal government and the state government to work through the challenges—there are tremendous opportunities, but challenges in making sure that we have the right workforce, not only the numbers and not only the qualifications but also the level of experience that will be required to meet the significant opportunities represented by the amount of defence manufacturing that will be occurring in this state over the next several decades.

I am pleased to therefore bring up a report on how we are tracking with implementing that plan. Initially there were some 22 initiatives that were established as being those of priority to meet this challenge. The way in which it was constructed—and people can see the task force work through an action plan on the website if they choose—was to go through the chronological stages in which the people of South Australia engage with deciding what they are going to study and where they are going to work. So the initiatives range from primary school, secondary school, vocational training, undergraduate training, entry-level work and then also, crucially, mid-career options in order to have people who are working in allied industries with similar skills able to make the transition across.

Of course, we have made many investments already in order to deliver this. For example, the election commitment that was made by the Premier and the Minister for Education to have five technical colleges fits neatly into one of the strategies to make sure that we are offering young people the opportunity who wish to work with their hands, at the same time making sure that they finish school, to have very high-tech equipment available and make an easy option to go and study some trades and work with industries such as BAE Systems.

Some 60 per cent of the 22 initiatives have successfully been launched already, which means that we are starting to track through in putting in place those major markers. We are seeing, of course, the increased interest from people in being engaged in the defence workforce, now that they appreciate that this is a serious option for them. In fact, at the naval and shipbuilding weekend that was held at Outer Harbor, in my electorate, a few months ago is an example of the number of people who came out. The schools were sending young people to come out and see what the options were and what pathway they needed to take to embrace that kind of work, and then also having families going and looking at the ships, looking at the submarine and finding out what the options would be for their children in the future.

We have seen some particular highlights recently. There have been 71 STEM scholarships, which have been offered to year 11 and 12 students for STEM, and they range from $3,000 to $7,000. Too often in the state of South Australia where we have relatively high levels of disadvantage, we see that young people have barriers to participating in this kind of workforce development through their experience of schooling and their recognition of what they are good at and what they might work in, and having STEM scholarships is one of the ways to encourage these students to consider those options.

We have also seen 13 commencing the Software Engineering degree apprenticeship. That is groundbreaking for a university qualification to be regarded as an apprenticeship, and able to be taken up through that pathway. We have already seen that, as we say, for the first cohort of 13 and, as it is tested out, we are expecting that approach to become much more widespread. We have had an addition of commonwealth-supported places for the universities, and I look forward to being able to update the house in future on further developments.