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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
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Skilling South Australia

Ms LUETHEN (King) (12:18): I move:

That this house:

(a) acknowledges the state government's commitment to significantly increase training participation in South Australia, specifically through the Skilling South Australia initiative;

(b) recognises the state government's investment of $100 million to secure matched commonwealth funding through the Skilling Australians Fund to create an additional 20,815 apprenticeships and traineeships in South Australia over the next four years; and

(c) acknowledges the state government's reforms giving industry a stronger voice in South Australia's training system and supporting young people by implementing flexible apprenticeship pathways.

Our new Liberal government supports this great South Australian initiative. I am so proud to be part of a government focused on delivering what our community is asking for, which is a future for our young people to build the capacity of South Australia and strong foundations for our future generations. We have a steadfast commitment to significantly increase training participation in South Australia, specifically through this initiative.

Our commitment to this initiative is so strong because South Australia's unemployment during Labor's 16 years in government was the highest of the mainland states for almost half that time. As I discussed in my maiden speech, so many people told me what they most wanted to see was more jobs for our young people in South Australia. We care very deeply about this. Despite our sad unemployment outcomes in the past 16 years, South Australia has also faced skills shortages in some key industries, with the number of South Australians in apprenticeships and traineeships more than halving over the past four years.

In a rapidly changing world, government investment in training must be connected to delivering on the broader needs of our economy and lead to real jobs and better investment outcomes. Training participation rates over the past five years under Labor are damning. Of particular concern is the drastic fall in youth participation in VET (aged 15 to 24 years), which fell by 14,700, or 34.9 per cent, to 27,400 students.

Critically, our state needs to better prepare for the naval shipbuilding job boom by reinvesting in the skilled jobs training sector to guarantee that our lion's share of the new shipbuilding jobs goes to South Australians. Our government will invest $100 million to create more than 20,000 new places in the vocational education and training system to provide South Australians with more opportunities to secure an apprenticeship or traineeship and a future career in South Australia. Young South Australians need a range of pathways to the jobs of the future, and this investment in apprenticeships and traineeships is a central feature of our jobs policy.

The initiative will include providing $100 million to secure matched funding from the federal government to create the additional 20,815 apprenticeships and traineeships in South Australia over the next four years. The federal government has established the Skilling Australians Fund to provide ongoing funding for vocational education and training. The fund was announced in the 2017 federal budget, but the South Australian Labor government failed to demonstrate any interest in securing money from this fund to secure benefits for our state and our young people. We care about our young people, and we want to keep them here in South Australia.

A Marshall Liberal government will commit to providing $100 million over four years to secure matched funding. Joint state-federal spending of over $200 million over the next four years will support 20,815 new apprenticeships and traineeships. This will include apprentices and trainees for occupations in demand including, in particular, in the defence sector, industries and sectors of future growth, industry areas struggling with current skills shortages, trade apprenticeships and rural and regional areas. This is a major investment in skills development that will lead to real job outcomes.

In addition, it will help us establish at least one new technical college in Adelaide's north-western suburbs with a focus on encouraging students to prepare for work in the defence sector, maintaining financial support for the crucial role of group training organisations in the training sector, implementing a major multifaceted program to encourage more young people to consider pursuing a career through a technical qualification as a first option, rather than as a fallback plan, and encouraging flexible apprenticeship pathways, enabling more young people to be learning and earning at the same time.

We want many more students to have the opportunity to undertake their first year of apprenticeship at the end of year 11, rather than waiting until after the end of year 12. We would like to see 1,000 students benefit from taking up a flexible apprenticeship at the end of year 11. Achieving the SACE while undertaking an apprenticeship is currently possible, but very few students are encouraged down this path today.

Currently, many students are staying on at school to achieve their SACE despite intending to go down vocational pathways. These students who remain in school are in some cases becoming disengaged and would rather be out in the workforce earning money. The community expectation to complete year 12 and SACE can delay these students from entering the workforce. By commencing their apprenticeship a year early, in effect these apprentices would gain their qualifications a full year ahead of students undertaking a standard route or a regular school-based apprenticeship, while attaining their SACE qualification along the way. It is also attractive for businesses to engage apprentices before they turn 18 so that their training is complete when they are 20.

While I was doorknocking in King, both business owners and parents told me they wished our young people had more opportunity to start apprenticeships earlier. We are listening to our community, which is a great segue to the additional benefits of this party's focus on listening to South Australians and businesses. Our state government reforms will give industry a stronger voice in our training system. I am proud to say that our Marshall Liberal government will re-establish the industry skills councils to ensure that industry has a stronger voice in TAFE, in VET schools and on the Training and Skills Commission, and they will directly have input into the highest level of government decision-making, including the minister and cabinet.

In addition, I have been fortunate in my career on boards and in council and working in Service SA to see firsthand the difference we can make by providing additional pre-employment, pre-vocational programs and training opportunities for our youth and to people in our community who may be facing challenges of having English as a second language or being long-term unemployed or disengaged.

Recently, I spoke with the CEO of the North East Development Agency, Joanne Munn, to ask how their programs and apprenticeship numbers are going. She told me the number of people in their apprenticeships are indeed growing. In fact, they have had to hire four more full-time trainers to keep up with the new apprentices. With a lift in confidence, more businesses are contacting NEDA to inquire whether there are people who have finished the pre-vocational courses and are ready for apprenticeships. Confidence is lifting.

In addition, she told me there have been fewer cancellations of apprenticeships, which is a great sign. She was also very supportive of our Liberal government commitment to pilot a program to help young people get their licence more easily. We have discussed this in the past. At one time when she came to speak to me about this, there were 10 vacancies in apprenticeships due to young people not having the support they needed to be able to get their driver's licence.

When I was working at Service SA, a number of concerned training providers and community members raised the issue of young people keen for an apprenticeship but not being able to get their licence. Sometimes because of the cost, time and limitations in family support, there is a growing challenge for young apprentices and trainees in relation to the difficulty in obtaining their provisional driver's licence and the right to drive without supervision. Many apprenticeship jobs, whether directly working for a business or through a training provider, require that the apprentice be able to drive to worksites as part of the job.

However, through a series of the previous government's policies, it has become so much harder for young people to obtain their driver's licence by the age of 17. Our Marshall Liberal government will undertake a 12-month trial of expediting this stage for students who are engaged in a contract of training. As trainees or apprentices who are required to drive for their employment, the time required on L-plates will be reduced from 12 months to six months. All other requirements, including the compulsory driving hours and the hazard perception test, will still be required.

I have seen firsthand the outcomes for participants engaged in pre-employment, pre-vocational and apprenticeship programs. I have seen the excellent enthusiasm and attendance rates of participants who were previously lacking confidence or disengaged in our community. These job and training opportunities will change lives. These opportunities could stop our youth leaving South Australia or becoming disengaged, and we all know the problems in our community that arise from that.

We are here to represent our community's best interest. We are focused on building capacity in South Australia. We are focused on the wellbeing of every South Australian. Our community voted us into government because of our platform to create jobs and deliver better services. This government will ensure that South Australia's training budget is targeted effectively at delivering skill outcomes that lead to real jobs and real careers right here in South Australia. I truly believe our Skilling South Australia initiative will build our capacity and at the same time give our people, businesses and industry confidence and more hope for the future.

Ms BETTISON (Ramsay) (12:30): Jobs, jobs, jobs. If you do not have a job, you do not have choices in life. In fact, it was my interest in the participation of the economy that drove my interest in politics. If you have a spare moment and wish to read my first speech to the house, you will note that that is what I talked about. I talked about the importance of jobs, and not only in my own life. When I was young and finished school and university, it was very difficult to get a job. Of course, I had great mentors in my life: my parents. I reflected on the fact that both of them studied post-secondary education and, in fact, they studied when I was a child and showed me that great role.

Let me say at the outset that the opposition supports the motion being put forward by the member for King. I think it is her first motion to the house, and I congratulate her on it. The opposition believes skilling our workforce is critical, but we will be watching and making sure that the Marshall Liberal government delivers on its election commitment to deliver 20,800 new apprenticeships and traineeships over the next four years.

Our own election commitment focused on $100 million to create 18,000 new accredited training places. As part of that $100 million package, Labor proposed $90 million towards accredited training places to support apprentices, trainees and job-related training in key growth industries. This also included retraining and reskilling workers who had been injured on the job. There was $6 million over five years for 1,000 school-based traineeships in the disability sector, training students for over 6,000 jobs being created by the National Disability Insurance Scheme. There was $2.35 million over three years to Community Centres SA to build skills and increase participation in training, volunteering and employment among disengaged young people and adults.

Let me reflect upon Community Centres South Australia, particularly their delivery of adult community education. I was part of the Economic and Finance Committee a few years back when they came to talk to us about skills and training. I have to say I changed my mind about the role of adult community education. For many people, their experience of education was not positive and was not encouraged. In fact, they were told that it was something they had to do but, as soon as they were old enough, they could leave. When they entered the workforce they found that they were very limited and had a lot of barriers to what they could do.

Yet often adult community education gave them that confidence, maybe to improve numeracy and literacy, maybe to improve their ICT abilities, or maybe just to build that confidence, particularly for those who had been out of the workforce for some time or may have worked in retail and hospitality but wanted to convert to administration roles and understand modern-day workplaces. I think that is incredibly important, so it is something that I will be watching in terms of money and support for adult community education as we go forward.

Part of our package also pledged $1 million for the four years for the training of Auslan interpreters and $650,000 over three years to the Council of the Ageing to trial a midcareer check and planning for people aged 50 and over, focused on planning ahead, upskilling and retraining. As a former minister for ageing that is one of the things that was a surprise to me because 45-plus is a really challenging time. Once you hit 45, it is harder to get a job.

As someone who has recently achieved that goal, that was a surprise to me because I feel like I have just got going and, if we are expected to work until the age of 70, then we have a cultural issue here. If we think that grey hair means that you cannot do a job, or we think that if you put your birth date on a resume you will not be interviewed, that is an issue. We need to have an understanding about people's skills and experiences. I have a lot of interest in multigenerational workplaces and the benefits they can provide for all people who work there. I am not sure that that has been picked up by the Marshall Liberal government to support COTA in their trial of a mid-career check, but I encourage them to look at that and, as the Minister for Industry and Skills is here, he might take that on notice.

In our election commitment, the Labor government also committed to a review of the industry skills advisory arrangements to ensure that training aligns with industry needs. Whilst this motion seeks to acknowledge the state government's apparent commitment to increase training and participation in South Australia, and recognise the state government's investment of $100 million to create these new apprenticeships, the fact is, actions speak louder than words.

Since coming to government, the Marshall Liberal government have not detailed how they are going to achieve this. The industry and skills minister put out a press release last month stating that they are working closely with the federal government, aiming to be the first state to leverage off the $100 million investment; however, the minister is yet to detail when we will know if the state government have been successful in securing this money. The minister has failed to provide a time line for how many new apprenticeships and traineeships will be created this year and over each of the following four years. There are no milestones in place to measure the success of this proposed initiative.

More concerning to me is what will happen if this Marshall Liberal government is not successful in attracting the other $100 million from the federal Liberal government. What if there is an election and a change of federal government? What are you going to put in place? When we look at this and we look at the federal Liberal government, we saw the recent budget, and one week before the budget the federal Liberals promised $1.4 billion for the north-south corridor but, come budget night, no new money had been allocated in the four-year forward estimates.

Then we saw the federal defence industries minister put out a media release on 20 April: 'SA defence industry even stronger under a Marshall government'. Then, only three days later, we saw shipbuilder ASC announce a loss of 197 manufacturing jobs and 26 administrative jobs. We on this side of the house know that you cannot trust Malcolm Turnbull and the federal Liberal government.

Yesterday, in Senate estimates reference was made to documents released under FOI that showed that French builder Naval Group's Australian industry plan, explaining how the company planned to utilise ASC staff, listed 1,700 employees as part of anticipated employment outcomes, yet the original promise in April 2016 was that 2,800 direct jobs would be secured. What happened to the missing 1,100? When it comes to the delivery of the Skilling South Australia initiative, it is important that the Marshall Liberal government secures the $100 million from the federal government. The opposition is keen to ensure that this project is successful.

Let me reflect on our term in government. We delivered training to an estimated 45,300 people in 2016-17 alone, which equates to around 8.7 million hours of training. When it comes to VET training, in 2016-17 the department invested $26.1 million in subsidies for more than 6,400 unique school-enrolled students. Roughly 42 per cent of SACE completions incorporate VET units of competence.

We all want the same thing: we want our economy to grow, and we want people to develop their skills, to use their training towards pathways to employment and to upskill in order to create opportunities for them in new industries or to increase their wage. How we get this is important, but we are all on the same page and we want to achieve this. I commend the motion to the house.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI (Unley—Minister for Industry and Skills) (12:40): I am very pleased to hear that the opposition will be supporting this motion from the member for King. I have to say that when out on the road doorknocking with the member for King I really did get a strong understanding of how connected she is with her community. She identified that a future for their children was an important requirement of any government they were going to support in the lead-up to the election, and she correctly identified that many of those aspirational families who live in King saw apprenticeships as a key progress, if you like, into careers that can go a very long way once they are complete.

I listened with interest to the member for Ramsay saying in her opening lines that she will be watching the government's apprenticeship numbers. I can understand why she will be doing that—because that is all they did when they were in office, when they had their hands on the levers and they could move those levers to achieve the things we want. I agree with the member for Ramsay: we all want the same thing, but we debate about how we achieve it. The former Labor government, the government she was a member of, sat there and watched as the numbers of traineeships and apprenticeships dwindled year after year in South Australia.

In 2012, there were 24,570 traineeships and apprenticeships in South Australia. In 2017, there were 15,200. I understand that is the largest drop per capita in the country, and it was under her watch. That is all she did. She watched it happen. So she is certainly welcome to watch what the Marshall Liberal government will be doing with our commitment to deliver more than 20,000 new traineeships and apprenticeships over the next four years. We are committed to doing this by lifting the profile and prestige of apprenticeships. Apprenticeships should be seen as another entry point into a career, not just a job but a career.

For many people as they pass their 20s and move into their 30s and 40s, lots of different opportunities can come their way if they are prepared for them and they can identify them when they come. I think it is pretty easy to argue that a trade background is a very good all-round grounding for those who want to move into other roles or more important roles where they started their working life, whether they want to be the manager or supervisor of the business they are working for, whether they want to cut ties with the business they are working for altogether and, as I did, start their own business or whether they want to use those skills on the farm, which is what the member for MacKillop did after doing his apprenticeship in fitting and turning and then returning to the farm. The trade-based entry into the workforce is very versatile, and unfortunately, after 16 years of Labor, we saw it deteriorate to crisis levels at a time when we needed high skills for the high-paying jobs coming our way in the defence and defence-related industries.

The fact is we do not have enough people in the welding area, the boiler making area or the electrical and electronics areas. A whole new area is developing in digital technology for which we only have two entry points at the moment. We have an entry point through a university degree or we have on-the-job training, no other entry point. We are very keen to see additional entry points into digital technology and cyberspace, and that is why in the latest round of subsidised training lists we have funded Certificate IV in Cyber Security. There will be more coming as we develop and improve the options for vocational education into careers.

Also of note in the member for Ramsay's contribution is that everything for the Labor Party is about the input, the money: 'We put money in this, we put money in that.' They never talk about the outcomes. We know why they do not talk about the outcomes. We all remember that famous promise of 100,000 extra jobs in South Australia from 2010 over a six-year period. I think they ended up reaching about 8,000 jobs. They did not want to talk about the outcome but they kept wanting to talk about the input.

When they introduced Skills for All, they talked about how much money they were putting in the system, not about the outcomes the system was developing. What we saw under Skills for All was an influx of training providers from interstate, pushing out established training providers here who were actually making a living from fee-for-service without any government money at all. They had lost their businesses overnight because those who were able to come in from interstate grabbed those customers, students and businesses that were hiring these businesses for a fee-for-service and took their business away because they were getting a subsidy. It was the most poorly managed bit of public expenditure that we have witnessed for a very long time.

You will not see that over the next four years with our plan to have more apprentices and more trainees in South Australia because the funding will be linked to job outcomes; it will be linked to jobs. We have started this by consulting 125 industry organisations and vocational education organisations before we have even started adjusting the list. It has been the first time ever.

It was terrific to get this feedback for my department after I had initiated this consultation process. The people who are in the industries that provide these skills were so pleased to be asked: what does the government need to do to make this work? Never have they had that question asked by the previous government because the previous government were only interested in how much money they was spending. They were not the slightest bit interested in talking about the outcomes that they were achieving.

They were happy to talk about outcomes that people might see in the distant future. There were promises or targets, but they were not happy to talk about the outcomes they were actually achieving because they were an embarrassment. They were going backwards. Those training figures I read out earlier are an indication of that.

It is also very concerning to hear the member for Ramsay now flagging that if there were a change of government in Canberra, and Bill Shorten or Anthony Albanese would become the Prime Minister of South Australia, there would be a cut in funding for apprenticeships. That is what we all heard. We all heard that from the member for Ramsay. It is just extraordinary that a party that is supposed to be there to support the workers of Australia is going to be cutting the very training they need to participate in the workforce. This will affect South Australia more so than the other states because we have a skills shortage in South Australia because of the record—

Ms BETTISON: Point of order: this is a misrepresentation of what I said, and I ask the minister to withdraw it.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: She can make a personal explanation. If she believes that I have misrepresented her, she can make a personal explanation to explain it. But we are all here in the chamber. We all heard this, and those in our offices all heard this.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Minister, I will call you back to the motion itself. I will listen carefully, and please ensure that you stick to the topic of the day.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: Certainly, sir. I will wind up by congratulating the member for King. She is very passionate about jobs and careers in South Australia, for our young people in particular. I think it is fair to say that the seat of King has disproportionately more younger people than, say, a seat like mine in Unley. She is switched on with what is important to those residents in her electorate of King. They want opportunities for their young people, and they are going to get them.

Mr DULUK (Waite) (12:50): I want to make a few comments on the motion moved by the member for King and congratulate her on her hard work and advocacy for her people in the north-east. I note this is her first motion. As the member for Unley concluded in his comments, skills, apprenticeships and jobs are a huge issue, not just in the member for King's electorate but, of course, in my electorate and across all of South Australia.

As I said, I support the motion and the Skilling South Australia initiative. It is a really important policy of the new Marshall Liberal government, one that formed the basis of our policy manifesto that we took to the last election. Our Strong Plan for Real Change is indeed a very comprehensive plan that we took to the electorate on key items in so many areas, but particularly in the area of skills, training and apprenticeships.

In the last 16 years of Labor, in particular the last four, we have seen the Labor government decimating skills, training and confidence in the VET sector, and the way the member for Port Adelaide, when she was the minister, treated that sector. It led to confusion, a loss of confidence and TAFE South Australia losing accreditation and having the embarrassment that goes with that. Essentially, under the former government, trade and apprenticeships reduced in South Australia from about 33,300 in 2013 to 15,700 in 2017—that was Labor's legacy for young South Australians looking for skill-based training and apprenticeships. That is about an 18,200 reduction in three or four years. That needs to change, and it will under a Liberal government and its policy framework, which is so important.

We need to give our tradespeople—plumbers, apprentices, draughtsmen, cabinetmakers, mechanics and the like—the right skills and the right training so that they can make a contribution to South Australia. I think it is important, in the context of this motion, that we support the language and the narrative around skills and training. I commend the minister for his work in that. Not everyone needs to go to university, and I think we need to change that narrative because university is not for everybody. It certainly has been the Labor way, since Whitlam in the 1970s, that if you did not go to university you were somehow missing out or not doing something right.

We need to really value work and we need to ensure that those who do not go to university have the skill set that they need going forward. This is one way to deal with the high youth unemployment that we have here in South Australia, which, unfortunately, has not been tackled by the former government. Once again, I know that this government will work hard to tackle youth unemployment. We recognise the need for that, and that is why we are providing $100 million to secure matched funding from the Skilling Australians Fund.

The member for Ramsay noted in her contribution that there might be a threat to this fund if there is a change of government at the federal level. I do not know why there would be a problem. I would like to see the South Australian Liberal Party, and perhaps the member for Ramsay herself, come out and guarantee that, should there be the unfortunate circumstance of a change of government federally one day, this funding will be guaranteed for South Australia. That would be quite a nice thing.

The Hon. A. Piccolo: One day—one day soon, sooner than later.

Mr DULUK: I would be really keen to see the member for Light write to the member for Grayndler, minister Albanese, to confirm that when he is leader of the Labor Party he will guarantee this funding for South Australia. We on this side are committed to working with the federal government to ensure that South Australia receives this funding, to ensure that our kids, our young South Australians, have the funding for the training they need, whether it is in the TAFE sector or with private providers.

The Hon. S.K. Knoll interjecting:

Mr DULUK: The member for Schubert knows the importance of private providers to the skilling of the workforce in South Australia. I think it is really important that we on this side of the house note the role that TAFE SA plays—and does and should and will continue to play—and also the role that private providers play in the mix in South Australia for apprenticeships, traineeships and the like.

As I said, the Marshall government is committed to matching the federal funding, and hopefully with that right injection we can create up to 20,000 new apprenticeships over the coming years. We will maintain funding to support group training organisations because, as I said, we believe there is an important role to play. I commend the member for King for putting this debate on the Notice Paper today so that we can actually talk about skills, and I look forward to working with her and the government to ensure the best for South Australians.

Ms LUETHEN (King) (12:56): In closing, I would like to say what a great day it is when there is so much support in the house for South Australians and for our youth to be able to be skilled and have jobs in South Australia. I am sure that the community at large will be incredibly happy to hear that this is absolutely our focus. I thank the member for Waite, minister Pisoni and the member for Ramsay for getting behind this skills and apprenticeship initiative for South Australia.

Motion carried.

Sitting suspended from 12:57 to 13:59.

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