Skills Shortages

The Hon. H.M. GIROLAMO (15:05): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development about skills shortages.

Leave granted.

The Hon. H.M. GIROLAMO: The meat industry requires urgent action on skills shortages ahead of the annual spring lamb season. The Australian Meat Industry Council chief executive, Patrick Hutchinson, was quoted in the Stock Journal as saying that processors were very concerned about continuing and looming workforce shortages. What are the minister and the department planning to do to support our vital meat industry?

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development, Minister for Forest Industries) (15:06): I thank the honourable member for her question. Certainly, skills shortages is an issue in the meat industry. I was recently at Thomas Foods in Murray Bridge inspecting the construction of their facility there, and it was a topic of great concern, of course. That is in common with many other regional and agricultural industries. In fact, today I was at a lunch speaking and again this was a topic of great concern.

There needs to be a number of different steps. We know that a couple of weeks ago at a federal level there was an increase to 195,000 in terms of visa places for workers, which will go some way towards assisting in some of the skills shortages, but we need to make sure that this is not the only step that we have in terms of addressing skills shortages.

At the country cabinet in the Upper Spencer Gulf, just last week or the week before, we were very fortunate to have a number of roundtable discussions, including around workforce. Present at that was the relevant minister, Blair Boyer, as well as various other ministers who have a role within this and myself as Minister for Regional Development. It really does take a partnership in terms of training for positions that are available and also looking at some of the other aspects that are holding back the opportunity to have people employed.

Some of those relate to individual skill levels and other barriers, but some also relate to things such as housing. We know that regional housing is a particularly difficult issue at the moment, and the government has been working within the relevant departments, but also with industry and others, to look at various ways of addressing some of the housing shortages, which also are a barrier to being able to employ people. We continue to work with the various industry organisations which also have a strong interest in this on behalf of their members, and I look forward to all of those steps coming together so that we can move this forward as far as is possible at this stage.