Hospitality Group Training

The Hon. A.L. McLACHLAN (15:17): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills a question regarding the recent closure of the Hospitality Group Training organisation.

Leave granted.

The Hon. A.L. McLACHLAN: It was recently reported that Hospitality Group Training, the state's largest employer of hospitality apprentices and trainees, has been forced to call in administrators as government funding has dried up. On 25 February, in response to a previous question on this issue, the minister outlined how the HGT currently employs 18 staff and around 116 apprentices and trainees. In the minister's answer, the council was informed that the Department of State Development is working with those apprentices who are currently employed by HGT to move to other employment contracts so that they can finish the employment component of their apprenticeship.

My questions to the minister are: is the government taking any measures to ensure that the workers employed by HGT will have their outstanding employee entitlements honoured, and what is the government doing to assist the 18 staff members who were employed by HGT as teachers in finding alternative employment?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills, Minister for Science and Information Economy, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Business Services and Consumers) (15:18): I thank the honourable member for his most important question. I have spoken about HGT in this place previously, and I have put on record previously how disappointing it is to see such a reputable quality trainer go into administration.

I remind honourable members that my understanding is that those matters are still being worked through and that they have not yet been resolved. In terms of determining the longer position for HGT, that has yet to be determined. I think we just need to be cautious in the sort of language that we use in that space, but I certainly wish them all the best and I hope that they can determine a viable long-term solution for them.

I think I have put on record before that the apprenticeship funding had remained unchanged and that the subsidy rate for apprentices had remained the same for HGT. I noted that the national trend was for a decrease in the number of apprenticeships, and we felt that trend here in South Australia as well. That probably reflects on global industrial changes, particularly around the construction industry work.

I also noted that, in relation to the general climate that HGT had been working in, we had moved to a model; in fact, the federal government had required that we move to a nationally competitive model, whereby training was opened up to a competitive marketplace. That did result in an increase in the number of private providers in the marketplace and, no doubt, that has had an impact on the sector interests. I did remind honourable members that, in terms of the Skills for All conditions, they were the same for all participating industry members, including HGT.

I have indicated here that HGT, as a group trainer, employs a number of apprentices and trainees and places them with host employers in particularly the hospitality industry. It offered training in hospitality-related courses and it earned revenue from the state and commonwealth governments as well as directly from students, and it had been in contact with the government about some of the issues it was facing previously.

It had been indicated to me that HGT, as an industry-owned GTO, employed 18 staff, together with 116 apprentices and trainees who, as I have said, were hosted to other businesses and that the closing impacted on I think they said about 300 learners, 162 of whom are apprentices and trainees. I outlined in this place that our department was working with the administrator. Our primary focus was to assist in ensuring that those students undertaking apprenticeships were able to find an alternative host employer and that those students with unfinished training needs were able to be assigned to other training programs where they could complete their training.

The response to the department was really incredibly uplifting. We received many responses from host employers that offered to assist in placing those apprentices, and the department, in a recent verbal report to me, indicated to me that there was a range of technicalities and complexities but were working carefully to reassign trainees with other teaching organisations. In relation to staff, I have not received a report on what is happening on the staffing front, but I am happy to take that on notice and to bring back a response.