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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-09-23 Daily Xml
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PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE: VICTOR HARBOR TAFE

Ms CICCARELLO (Norwood) (11:40): I move:

That the 330th report of the committee, entitled Victor Harbor TAFE, be noted.

The Victor Harbor local government area has an estimated population of 12,811, with a further 22,026 in the local government area of Alexandrina and 4,439 in Yankalilla. The Fleurieu Peninsula population is expected to continue to grow at a rapid rate. Appropriate accommodation will be provided to TAFE to replace the campus on Adelaide Road. It will consist of skills laboratories for community services and nursing, a learning space, a virtual office area, general purpose teaching spaces, computer laboratory and administration areas together with staff and student amenities.

A 1.1 hectare site will provide the new campus with sufficient space to meet growth for the next 10 years and space for up to double capacity if required. The estimated capital cost of the building and associated works is $9.4 million (excluding GST). The general teaching areas include a space designated to provide hard-wired computing facilities but designed to adapt to the changing training needs over the life of the asset. The learning space will provide increased computing facilities to accommodate learning in information technology and will be complemented by access to the nearby council library.

The design of the campus also facilitates third party access to space by other community education providers or for other uses. The City of Victor Harbor has been consulted during the project design in order to minimise the impact upon the surrounding areas. Connectivity with other educational and recreational facilities via walkways and other linkages has been identified by council and will be negotiated with LMC during the land development.

Maximising passive design opportunities will be a design objective of this project. In addition, water usage will be minimised by use of six on-site 35,000 litre stormwater storage tanks, which will be utilised for landscape irrigation and flushing of toilets. The overall site is partly landscaped with low maintenance, mainly indigenous species planting. Sustainable horticultural principles will be employed in all landscape construction, including establishment drip irrigation, deep ripping and mulching. Natural grassed areas will be irrigated with retained stormwater collected from the hard-paved areas into swales which lead into a large detention pond. A small pump and chamber will be provided to pressurise the system for irrigation of the garden areas.

Training needs are anticipated to increase by approximately 75 per cent over the next 10 years. This is due to the forecast population growth in the area and the expected current unmet demand which would drive an additional increase in student numbers upon completion of the facility. This project allows for an increase of 100 per cent in the levels provided by the existing facility. It is also consistent with the department's key goal of ensuring that South Australians have the necessary education and skills to participate in the high skill economy.

A number of key initiatives will be adopted in this first facility designed and built under new guidelines. These will extend training to encompass e-learning, provide flexible multipurpose space that can be adapted to a number of needs and encourage third party access to facilities. The main program area of community services is expected to experience high growth due to the demographic shift in the South Coast population, in particular growth in the dependent age cohort (0-14 years and 65 plus years). Skilled labour in the community care sector will be essential to meet the needs of the region, and TAFE has an important role to play in providing the necessary training to prevent a skills shortage in the industry.

In addition, community care courses are in high demand by students in the region. In 2007 students from the region were offered 12,500 hours of education in community services at another campus. This indicates that an increase in capacity of 35 per cent at Victor Harbor will be filled immediately by student demand.

To ensure high utilisation levels at the new campus, it is planned to offer nursing qualifications, which use similar facilities to a community services program and can be provided with little additional capital investment. Despite a high level of construction in the local area, demand for courses in pre-vocational trades is modest. There was only limited take-up in a course offered in 2007. The capital cost required to build a purpose-built workshop is excessive given the demand.

In an attempt to reduce the capital cost and provide flexibility, a mobile facility was investigated as an alternative, but the excessive recurrent costs were prohibitive. The federal government has announced the introduction of trade training centres aligned to secondary schools and potentially including TAFE as a partner. The proximity of the proposed TAFE campus and the Victor Harbor High School has led to consultation to determine how this may benefit both parties.

Social benefits include the provision of vocational education and training in a region with an increasing population and allowing residents to train locally rather than being required to travel to an alternative campus to study. The nearest campus is 54 kilometres away, and none is accessible via public transport from the South Coast. An analysis of the cost of travel has indicated a cost to the community of $778,000 per annum within a decade.

Other social benefits that come from providing education include retaining population in the local area, increasing workforce skills (which may attract new business), and a decrease in unemployment. A higher skilled workforce is also more likely to attract higher salaries: typically, higher household incomes have a positive flow-on effect in social and economic benefits in the local community. Construction was expected to commence in July 2009 and be completed by July 2010.

Based upon the evidence it has considered, and pursuant to section 12C of the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991, the Public Works Committee reports to parliament that it recommends the proposed public works.

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (11:46): Well, I say 'hallelujah, brother' that we have finally got to talk about this report in the parliament. It has taken five months since we had this hearing—15 April this year—to get to it. That says to me that we need to speed up how we get the public works reports through the parliament. It takes too long. These are important issues, and this is extremely important to my electorate.

The member for Norwood has covered a considerable number of points that I could raise, and I probably do not need to repeat them. However, at the risk of repeating earlier speeches that I have made in this place on the subject, let me just remind the house that the Liberal government had this measure in its budget in 2001 and the Rann Labor government canned it on coming into office. Here we are, some seven years later, and the Victor Harbor TAFE will come to fruition—although it is important to note that at the moment nothing whatsoever has happened with respect to on-ground works at Victor Harbor. Indeed, the students are still in the somewhat inadequate facilities that were temporary as far back as about 1990, as I understand it. They are still waiting to go into the new premises when they are completed.

This is a good measure. However, it is not all good, because this facility has been scaled back: it is not the facility that should be built on the South Coast. It is not big enough and it does not cater for enough TAFE training opportunities. There is a focus in that area, quite correctly, on aged care. That is a highly important issue. It is critical that we have enough people training in aged care at TAFE on the South Coast, and I wholeheartedly support what is taking place there in relation to aged-care training.

The member for Fisher, in a previous life, when he was a minister responsible for TAFE in the Brown Liberal government, had quite a bit to do with the possibility of establishing a TAFE college in that area, and he will probably want to say a few words. It is extremely disappointing that this Rann Labor-National Party government has scaled back the Victor Harbor TAFE and that it will not allow for full training facilities to be put in place for carpentry and similar trades so young men have the opportunity to learn a trade. Unfortunately, they still will have to go over the hill, so to speak—over Willunga Hill—to the city and other TAFE facilities, and be away from their homes and families. This facility will not cater for that. Once again, that is an abrogation of responsibility by the Rann Labor government in relation to the South Coast.

When the Labor Party comes down there puffing and blowing and bringing out their big wheels to support their candidate, the community will not be fooled. People are awake to what is going on. If the Labor Party wants to bring down these people and promote their own side in the lead-up to the state election, they can rest assured that my memory recall will be such that the community will be reminded regularly that there was a seven year delay in the Victor Harbor High School project, and the delay to the TAFE project is seven years and will probably be eight or nine years by the time we get it up.

Yesterday, the health minister announced vaccinations for swine flu but I noted that the South Coast and Fleurieu Peninsula (including Yankalilla, Normanville, Victor Harbor, Goolwa, Port Elliot and Middleton) were left out again. We have an increasing number of senior residents down there and a multitude of young families who should have been on the list. We will just wait and see what the minister does about this over the next few days. I suggest he will act fairly promptly.

The Rann Labor government stands condemned for its inaction and putting these projects on the back burner, for inhibiting the development of the youth of the South Coast and not giving them the opportunity to have decent facilities. The TAFE staff down there are terrific, and are wonderful people who work in substandard facilities and have done so for years. My office has a trainee, and we are about to get a new one—I think this is number 14 or 15. They have all gone through the Victor Harbor TAFE in business studies courses, and I am sure that other members in this place also have trainees. However, the fact is that these poor young people (and they are predominantly young people) have to put up with what they have at the moment, and it is not good enough. There are also increasing numbers of 30, 40 or 50 year olds going through TAFE who want to upgrade their skills and go into different professions such as aged care and tourism.

Let me repeat: it is not good enough to have the young men, particularly, in the district—or even young women—who want to do these trades, leave their homes on the South Coast and Fleurieu Peninsula to go over the hill to reside in Adelaide in order to do TAFE training and apprenticeship courses, instead of being down where they belong. They put their lives at risk every time they get on the Victor Harbor-Adelaide or the Goolwa-Adelaide roads, whichever way they travel—or even from Yankalilla through to Adelaide. It is not good enough.

I stand here and condemn this government wholeheartedly for the delay in this project. I was pleased to support the project through the Public Works Committee. It is $9.4 million worth of money that will be well spent, but it could be a lot better, and I look forward to the opening of this as soon as possible.

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (11:54): I take an interest in this project because many years ago, as minister for further education, I was keen to see a training establishment, a TAFE facility, created at Victor Harbor adjacent to the high school. This has been a bit like an elephant's pregnancy: it has gone on for ages.

As the member for Finniss has just pointed out, this project has been downsized, which is unfortunate given that the Southern Fleurieu is a growth area. As has been indicated, young people—men and women—who want to do trades will still find it difficult to do so because they will have to travel to Noarlunga, Murray Bridge or Mount Barker.

In relation to this particular project, I am delighted that something is happening, even though it is downsized. It is good that it is happening, but it is being proposed under a cloud that is covering TAFE. We hear rumours. People who work at Panorama TAFE have written to me suggesting that that site will be shut down. I have written to the minister asking whether that is the case. What is the future for Panorama? It is important that we do not reduce the capability of TAFE to offer modern and important skills-based programs.

For a long time, the community has not appreciated the value of TAFE. Those who are in the know, like the member for Giles and people like me, fully appreciate the value of TAFE because we have had a lot to do with it over time. Sadly, I have regarded TAFE as one of our best kept secrets and was disappointed when the federal Howard government created stand-alone technical colleges, rather than building on the existing framework of TAFE. Anyway, two of those have now gone into the Catholic education system and the fate of the one in the Spencer Gulf area is not yet determined.

A member said that the state government did not allow the federal government to participate in TAFE. I am not sure of the accuracy of that but, whatever the reason, it was unfortunate that separate, stand-alone technical colleges were created rather than building on and within the framework of TAFE.

This development is long overdue. As minister I fought hard to keep the land—which members will appreciate, as you come into Victor Harbor from Adelaide is on the right-hand side and must now be worth a fortune—because I saw that as an offset for building a fantastic TAFE facility in Victor Harbor. What we see here today is a much scaled down version, involving a cost of $9.4 million. I look forward to the day when the people of Victor Harbor and the whole Fleurieu area have access to a wider range of TAFE skills-based programs, rather than that which this facility in its current projected form will allow.

Motion carried.

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