Vocational Education and Training

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (14:38): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills a question regarding government, in particular Labor Party, election commitments.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: On 28 February 2010 a media release was issued by former premier Mike Rann entitled '100,000 New Jobs Target'. It stated:

The Rann Labor Government will invest $194 million to help create an extra 100,000 apprenticeships and training places needed to keep driving our State's economic boom.

Premier Mike Rann today—at Labor's State campaign launch in Norwood—directly linked the training investment to a new target of 100,000 extra jobs in the next six years.

He says:

To help get there we intend to increase the number of vocational education and training places by 100,000 in the next six years.

This would take us to February next year. Further in the media release, the former Premier refers to 50,000 places for women and 4,000 additional training places for Aboriginal people. He also stated:

We will be reversing the trend we have seen for too long—where young people have had to leave our State to get work elsewhere.

1. Can the minister advise how that trend is going with young people leaving our state to get work elsewhere?

2. Can she report on the 100,000 jobs and the 100,000 training places and, in particular, whether those targets for women and Indigenous training places have been met?

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) (14:40): I thank the honourable member for her most important question. I have talked in this place before about our 100,000 jobs aspiration. I have spent a great deal of time in this place on several occasions answering that, so I am more than captured on the record on that. I have also spoken at length about our 100,000 additional training places, which we have more than achieved well ahead of time, and we are well in advance of those numbers. Was it older Australians? Aborigines?

The Hon. J.M.A. Lensink: It was 50,000 women and 4,000 Indigenous.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: In terms of Aboriginal employment, is that the 2 per cent by 2014? I am not too sure which target, as there are quite a few of them. There is Target 51, which looks at Aboriginal unemployment: halve the gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal unemployment rates by 2018. I have been advised that in 2008, that baseline year, the gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal unemployment rates was 14 percentage points. In 2010 this gap then widened to 21.5 percentage points, before then declining to 10 percentage points in 2011. I am advised that no new data has been released since 2011 and, on this basis, progress rating is unclear. As you can see, there is a fair bit of volatility in those figures.

The sort of actions being taken to achieve that target include things like the Skills in the Workplace program and Skills for Jobs in Regions which are identifying a range of potential opportunities to help connect enterprises and disadvantaged South Australian jobseekers on government funded projects, so we continue to work in that space. I do not have the women's figures with me, so I will have to take that part of the question on notice and I will be happy to bring back a response.