Apprentices, Vehicle Registration Discounts

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (14:44): My question is to the Minister for Education, Training and Skills. Will the government offer registration discounts to trade apprentices? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr McBRIDE: Both the Victorian and New South Wales governments offer registration discounts to apprentices who use their own vehicle for work. This would assist apprentices with the rising cost of living.

The Hon. B.I. BOYER (Wright—Minister for Education, Training and Skills) (14:45): I thank the member for MacKillop for this very important question, and he is right that it is an issue. We know that we have a pretty big task ahead of us as a state in terms of being able to fill all those skilled worker positions that we need to meet existing demand across almost every single industry that you can name, let alone all the additional growth that we need in the state to meet future jobs. A lot of that growth that we need is in occupations that have a traditional trade apprenticeship pathway. In fact, I think the target for our state alone across the next five years is an additional 78,000 VET-trained staff on top of what we have, which is enormous uplift for South Australia.

Unfortunately, part of the challenge for young people in many cases—and I think we see more of this now with this generation than we have with previous generations—is, for whatever reason, a reluctance to get their driver's licence. Particularly in those traditional trades that the member for MacKillop has mentioned—if we are talking about carpenters, plumbers or sparkies who, when they are doing their apprenticeship, potentially have a different workplace almost every day—it is important that they not only have their licence but have access to a car.

This has been something that has been raised with me as the Minister for Training and Skills for a number of years, not just by the member for MacKillop but by organisations like the Master Builders Association as well who are having conversations with the employers that they represent. They say that often they get to the point with the young person who is about to sign up to an apprenticeship—they have gone through that process and then they ask what is often the final question about whether or not they have a licence and access to a car, because they are going to need to drive to the worksite. They say no they don't, and that's the end of it right there. Of course, that is a huge loss for the apprentice, and the opportunity that that apprenticeship presented for them, it is a huge loss to the employer, of course, and for the state as well.

So we have been looking at what we can do. There are a couple of things that we currently offer through the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB). They have a career-driven program as part of the Doorways2Construction program, which many members in this chamber might be aware of. It gives high school students the opportunity to actually work on a worksite and get a cert II. I was recently out in the member for Ramsay's electorate where some students from a school out there had refurbished a Housing Trust property so that it was ready for tenants as part of Doorways2Construction. They will get five free hours of driving lessons, which I think is excellent and really important. I am keen, though, to discuss with the member for MacKillop—and I have been having these conversations with the Master Builders Association—what else we can do.

It is true we don't offer the program that the member for MacKillop refers to that other states do. I think it is a matter of us having a look at what is the best method of attracting young people into those apprenticeships and making sure they can actually take them up. I think a lot of work probably needs to be done with schools, with high schools as well, in terms of having conversations with young people around why they are choosing not to get their driver's licence, because that is the big change that I am seeing.

Some important work needs to happen around making sure those young people understand at the age they can start getting their Ls, and getting their hours up, that a future job might be at risk if they don't go ahead and have that, particularly given that we are doing a lot as a state and as a government to encourage people who might otherwise have thought that a university pathway was the only option to take a VET pathway as well—and obviously a licence is important. So I am happy to continue discussions with the member for MacKillop and see what we can do. It is a very important issue.