South Australian Training Awards

Ms WORTLEY (Torrens) (15:06): My question is to the Minister for Education, Training and Skills. Can the minister update the house on the 2024 South Australian Training Awards?

The Hon. B.I. BOYER (Wright—Minister for Education, Training and Skills) (15:07): I thank the member for Torrens for her question. Last night, I was pleased to join the Premier and the shadow minister at the South Australian Training Awards, which is the gala night for the training sector in our state, an opportunity to award those people who are perhaps apprentices or trainees in the system or even those organisations, and we have many great examples of them, who do that training.

I want to take the opportunity that the member for Torrens' question affords me to thank the South Australian Skills Commissioner, Mr Cameron Baker, for the enormous piece of work that his team did to organise the night, which saw about 600 attendees. I would also like to take the opportunity to share the names of a couple of the winners with this place. There are some very uplifting stories about the things that are happening there. As the Premier said, it is really those training providers in our system who are the ones we task with the responsibility of making sure that those job opportunities that we speak about in this place so regularly, those benefits and opportunities actually get out and are reached and felt by everyday South Australians.

I want to give a special mention to the Lifetime Achievement Award, which was given to Jo Denley, who is someone who will be known to many in this place in a lot of roles but most recently as the long-term Chair of the TAFE Board. I want to thank Jo for an incredibly long period of service. It was fantastic to see her rightfully acknowledged last night.

The Industry Collaboration Award was won by Road to Redemption, which is a collaboration between Workskil Australia, Carey Training and the Department for Correctional Services. It is an amazing story about reducing recidivism. I think the most startling stat that I have seen in relation to this is that 70 per cent of participants who take part in Road to Redemption secure work, which is a fantastic story and something that was very worthy of the acknowledgement it got last night.

Small Training Provider of the Year went to FCTA—Building Careers, the only Australian provider of accredited training in heritage trade skills. On that topic, I know that members in this place will be very pleased to know that Kapunda High School won the VET Innovation for Schools Award. I know their local member will be pleased to hear that, but also we have a couple of members on this side of the house who are old scholars of the school. We know that, tragically, the Eringa Building caught fire back in 2022. We are on the way to rebuilding that incredible piece of South Australian history, but the really good story and the intersection with the skills and training awards last night is that it is Kapunda High School students who are actually doing the work to restore that building and, as they do it, they are learning skills in heritage trades, which I think is fantastic. I was very proud as minister to see them acknowledged for those efforts last night.

The Vocational Student of the Year is Zander Lee, a Cert IV in Live Production and Technical Services student, who is now a professional lighting technician at the Adelaide Festival Centre. Stephanie Hernandez is the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Student of the Year, having overcome leaving school at year 10 and the balancing act of raising three kids while studying a diploma of nursing at the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) Education Centre. That was a great story. Stephanie spoke really passionately about the things she had to overcome and the fact that she wouldn't have done it without the amazing help she got from the ANMF's education centre, which was a great story as well.

I also want to mention Bianca Taylor, who last night was awarded the state's Apprentice of the Year Award, the last award of the night. She is the state's first female stonemason, which is a pretty amazing achievement. She is very passionate about her industry and she has already set up her own heritage restoration business. Bianca is very young, as you might imagine, and I think she is going to be an inspiration to many other young people who might be considering what kind of future they could have in some of our traditional trades.

Congratulations to all the finalists and winners. As I said last night, there is only so much we can say as politicians to inspire other young people to choose a path like this. What is far more successful is seeing other people who have already done it in their lives get up and explain to others why it might be such a great thing for them to consider as well.