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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-06-28 Daily Xml
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Defence Workforce Plan

Ms SAVVAS (Newland) (14:21): My question is to the Premier. How is the Malinauskas government supporting highly skilled defence jobs for the future?

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:21): I thank the member for Newland for her question. In fact, I was very happy earlier this morning to be with the Deputy Premier down at Osborne talking to people employed by BAE Systems working on the Hunter Class Frigate Program. We had the opportunity to meet with apprentices who themselves were from the north-eastern suburbs and may well have been from the seat of Newland.

It was really quite a heartening experience to be with the Deputy Premier to see the progress that BAE has made over a pretty short time, particularly around the ramp-up of the number of people they now employ—over 1,000 people. It's an extraordinary effort to be able to employ over 650 more just in the last 12 months, given the status of the labour market in South Australia.

You can't find a business anywhere at the moment not complaining about how hard it is to find people. Imagine trying to find 650 during that very period. But, to add to the size of the challenge, BAE Systems are going to employ an additional 2,000 people—which is almost twice as many who worked at Holden at the point of its closure—between now and 2026. Their ability to be able to do that will in no small way be underpinned by a collaborative relationship they have with the state government that is actively investing in education, training and skills, with a very clear eye on the opportunities that we know are coming our way.

The Minister for Education and Skills in particular, along with the Deputy Premier, has been formulating a range of policy interventions to assist us in that regard. The one that I think is the most exciting for a young person out there in the community at the moment is that in the member for Cheltenham's electorate there is a technical college being built as we speak that has enrolments open today, that will be open at the beginning of the school year, where any young person can enrol in the Advanced Manufacturing course and, should they complete that course at the end of their studies, they get a job at BAE Systems: a well-paid job, a secure job, a job that will last for a long time to come.

That is just one example of the type of innovative policy efforts that this government is undertaking to partner with a company like BAE, but we are going to need to do a lot more because we know that the sheer volume of people going to be required is going to increase into the future.

The government is undertaking a number of actions that are under active pursuit at the moment, including reaching an agreement with the commonwealth regarding land swap, where we as a state government hand over to the commonwealth land down at Osborne, which will facilitate them building a brand-new academy that will train thousands upon thousands of people to work in the naval shipbuilding industry.

In exchange, the state government is pursuing land at sites such as Cultana and Keswick—sites that will underpin our expansion into the future in the hydrogen sector, being critical land that the state government has never been able to get access to in the past, despite some efforts. But also there is the ability to acquire the Keswick Barracks site, which could be an incredibly strategic piece of land used for innovative housing policy but also, potentially, useful strategically for the state government as an innovative precinct.

These are the types of pursuits that the state government is engaging in, as well as the pursuit of the creation of a new university where we have already been able to secure additional commonwealth-supported places that are worth a lot of money to the state government as part of that effort. This government is leaving no stone unturned in supporting the naval shipbuilding opportunity in our state.

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