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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-09-25 Daily Xml
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Underground Mining School of Excellence

Dr HARVEY (Newland) (15:07): Thank you, Mr Speaker. My question is to the Minister for Energy and Mining. Can the minister please update the house on how BHP's Underground Mining School of Excellence is developing careers in the state's mining sector?

The SPEAKER: The Minister for Energy and Mining—on the buzzer.

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart—Minister for Energy and Mining) (15:07): I thank the member for Newland for this fantastic question and, yes, I can update the house on this terrific initiative. Back on 30 August—

Mr Malinauskas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Leader!

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: —the Premier and I had the privilege of going up to Olympic Dam with BHP, most notably with Ms Laura Tyler, the Asset President from BHP, the most senior person in Australia with regard to the operation and oversight of the Olympic Dam mine and a very capable person. We were given a good look around the facility, particularly underground. But the reason we were there on that day was so that the Premier could officially open what BHP is calling their School of Rock—a fantastic name for what is also a fantastic program.

BHP recognise that they want to expand, they want to grow, they want to continue to make the extraordinary contribution to the South Australian economy that they have for 30 years now, but they also know that they need to have very capable, focused, trained, skilled employees. They also know that getting people to work underground is one of those quite specialised things, separate from the specific job. Just working underground is not for everybody. Quite understandably, it's not for everybody. So they have opened up a five-week program where people start on day one underground. They are getting theory training, they are getting practical training, but from day one they are working underground in classrooms, on jobs, and it's a very positive aspect.

It fits also incredibly well with the Marshall government's apprenticeship and traineeship program, which the Minister for Innovation and Skills is championing for us: I think it is 20,816 traineeships and apprenticeships over four years and $100 million from the state government and similar from the federal government to get 20,000 apprenticeships out, so it is an absolutely outstanding program. The Minister for Innovation and Skills reminds us regularly that he is right on track delivering on those apprenticeships, which is in the interest of those young people, in the interest of employers who have these people coming into their business and, of course, in the long-term interest of our state.

These two programs work very well together. It was an enormous pleasure to meet a young woman who had been working in a pharmacy in Port Pirie before she came into this School of Rock program. A young man from Victoria, who was a plumber and actually had his own plumbing small business in Victoria, came across to start here. A young woman from the West Coast—I think it was Streaky Bay—had actually been a schoolteacher beforehand, and there were many other people. In fact, Gordon, a young man from my town of Wilmington, was also there and it was a pleasant surprise to meet with him.

All sorts of people from all walks of life are coming to take advantage of this tremendous training program. It fits exactly with our government's priorities of growing the economy, skilling people up, getting them jobs, and making sure that today, tomorrow and for decades to come the people of South Australia have a tremendous state to live in, a good place to live, and, very importantly, a really strong economy, which gives decades of life.

We want people to stay in South Australia. We want people from other states in the nation to come to South Australia. We have already started to turn around the net loss of people to interstate from South Australia and we are determined to turn that into a net gain. Programs like BHP's School of Rock are integral to that and we have much more work to do in that area.

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