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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2008-09-11 Daily Xml
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MINING SECTOR EMPLOYMENT

Mr BIGNELL (Mawson) (15:25): Today I rise to talk about a trip I did during the winter recess from this place. I used my parliamentary travel allowance, with the blessing of the Speaker after I wrote to him last year, to hire a bus to take students from the southern suburbs of Adelaide up to Roxby Downs to show them the mining boom first-hand. I thank the schools who were involved, including Reynella East High School, and companies like BHP Billiton who were so generous with their time and information during the process.

We took 31 students from years 11 and 12 to Roxby Downs. We stayed at Woomera, then we took them around the mine above ground and then into BHP Billiton's facilities to hear from BHP management, including their HR boss, who spoke to the students about how important it is to have a work record, to get a job outside of school hours at the local supermarket or a fast food outlet. They were explaining to the students that one of the first things they do as HR professionals is check work history—not so much school history, because school is not for all students, as we found out on this trip. Probably a lot of the students we had on the bus were not the best scholars but they were keen to start their after-school life on a positive note and get a job and have a pathway and a career.

The students were very excited about the large amounts of money that could be made, and not all of the students were interested in going underground to work in the mines. One of the students was so excited because he wants to be a chef. When we took him through the facilities at the Olympic Dam camp where they serve 900 breakfasts, 900 lunches and 900 dinners every day, he was very excited about the prospect of trying to get a fly-in, fly-out job and working as an apprentice in that facility to start his progress to become a chef.

We are having a get-together next week at Reynella East High School to do a debrief, but already I have seen some of the written reports and surveys that the students were asked to do, and they all found it a very rewarding and worthwhile experience. One of the other things I pointed out to the students was that just because the mining boom is happening in the north of the state—and it is not just at Roxby Downs but right across the North and out to the Western Australian border where we have some fantastic mineral sands deposits that are being mined—there are lots of related jobs. I think it is five or six jobs for every mining job elsewhere in the state, including in the southern suburbs.

We have some very smart companies in the southern suburbs who are doing some highly technological work in the areas of drilling and other related facets of the mining industry. People do not have to go a long way away to get a job related to the mining boom; in fact, they can find some very good jobs and apprenticeships around the southern suburbs. I was very pleased to hear earlier today during question time an answer from the education minister about the development of trade schools in South Australian schools.

I think it has been noted for a number of years now that successive governments have failed in the area of delivering skilled workers out of our school system. Also, the Minister for Employment, Training and Further Education, who is doing a wonderful job in the area of TAFE and training, spoke today about the big leap forward in the increase in the amount of skilled people we have going through training in our state and, as he said, we are leading other states in some cases three to one. That was wonderful news to hear and it ties in with the trip that I took the students on to Roxby Downs.

We have to let the students know what the possibilities are and there is no better way than taking them literally to the coalface—although it is not the coalface: it is the uranium, copper and silver face—showing them first-hand what is available out there. This is not just a boom. With the exploration of minerals in South Australia, we are going to take this state to a higher level that we are going to sit on as a plateau for many years to come. It is not a mining boom or a bubble that is going to burst some time soon. It is only something that will continue to grow, and we need to have skilled tradespeople there to be able to work in the mines and all those related industries. We will do anything we can to help as local members. I am sure that other members in this house would agree that we should be setting the course and helping students of today become the skilled workers of tomorrow to make sure that this state really prospers.

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