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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-02-21 Daily Xml
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Defence Shipbuilding

Mr PATTERSON (Morphett) (14:21): My question is for the Minister for Defence and Space Industries. Has the department provided any advice to the minister about potential job losses at Osborne should the Navantia bid be successful?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Minister for Defence and Space Industries, Minister for Climate, Environment and Water) (14:21): I don't believe that I have received any advice to that effect, and I would be surprised if I did. The idea that Navantia was advancing was in the context of not only supplying needed ships, in their view, but also addressing the challenges of building a skilled workforce at Osborne in order to be prepared for these submarines.

As people may be aware when we contemplate the building of these submarines, we often talk about the challenges of the skills shortage and the need to train people for that. That is absolutely a priority. But there is another element to that that probably isn't aired as often, which is that skilled workers are required—so not just people coming out with the qualifications but people with sufficient experience to be senior. That is not just in welding and others trades but also in project management, particularly of complex defence-build projects.

The context in which Navantia and other projects have been advanced has been entirely about building the workforce and building that capability steadily in order to have people at all levels of skill and experience ready for the very substantial demands of the sustained build of the submarines.

The SPEAKER: I see the member for Badcoe. Pardon me, member for Badcoe; the member for Morphett has raised with me his wish to ask a supplementary question.

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