Apprenticeships

Mrs PEARCE (King) (14:33): My question is to the Minister for Education, Training and Skills. Can the minister update the house on apprenticeships in South Australia, and is he aware of any recent updates on commencements?

The Hon. B.I. BOYER (Wright—Minister for Education, Training and Skills) (14:33): I am very pleased to have this question from the member for King. In fact, just this morning, I joined the member for Gibson in Seacombe Gardens, where I was also joined by my federal colleague the Minister for Skills and Training, Andrew Giles, as well as Scott Salisbury, who of course is a builder of very strong repute in South Australia over a number of years, and Stephen Knight from the Housing Industry Association.

Minister Giles announced an additional 1,340 fee-free TAFE places for construction, which we know is incredibly important at this time with the government's commitment around building new homes. These 1,340 fee-free TAFE places in construction will make sure that the training is there for those who want to enter the industry as perhaps a bricklayer or a carpenter or a plumber or an electrician to make sure we have that pipeline of workers there to build all those new homes that South Australia needs.

But it also provides us today with a very important opportunity to have a look at the commitment that was made by the former Liberal government before the 2018 election. I know that some people in this place will remember a very specific election commitment that was made by the then Liberal opposition before they won the 2018 state election, which was for 20,815 new additional apprenticeships and traineeships—a very specific number. We have the opportunity now that time has passed to actually look at how many of those 20,815 were actually delivered.

The data we have managed to put together this week using the National Centre for Vocational Education Research, which is independent data, shows that, of the 20,815 that those opposite not only committed to deliver before the 2018 election but said in the lead-up to the 2022 election that they had delivered to the South Australian people, they fell almost 6,000 places short. That did not stop them telling South Australians that they had met their target of 20,815, but that is not all.

We need to look to where the growth was because we know that this commitment was not tracking well in the early days of the then Marshall Liberal government. In fact, at one stage, just 1,000 of those 20,815 had actually been created. Then COVID hit and the federal government stepped in with a time-limited wage subsidy program. There is nothing wrong with that, but it was time limited. In some cases, it offered to pay up to 50 per cent of the subsidy of the wage of an apprentice or a trainee. Of course, as you would expect, employees responded in kind and those numbers started to grow towards the target of 20,815.

But where did we see the growth? That is what we need to analyse today, especially given that we are at such an important time in our state's history with all of these big projects in front of us, whether it is AUKUS or a new Women's and Children's Hospital or a north-south corridor or a second year of preschool.

Where do we need the growth? Well, I will tell you where we got it: Certificate III in Fitness grew by 4,000 per cent, Diploma of Leadership and Management grew by 12,000 per cent and Certificate in Retail Management grew by 667 per cent. That is how we got to the figure finally of about 15,000, but still 6,000 short. What this government is focused on is making sure that, yes, we get growth in commencements and we improve completions but we have to get it where the state needs it. That is why things like fee-free TAFE are important, it is why our tech colleges are important, it is why the National Skills Agreement that we signed with an extra almost $700 million is important—to make sure we get growth in the areas where this state actually needs it.