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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-06-21 Daily Xml
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WOMEN AT WORK INITIATIVE

The Hon. CARMEL ZOLLO (14:53): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for the Status of Women a question about women at work.

Leave granted.

The Hon. CARMEL ZOLLO: The state Labor government committed in 2010 to developing a campaign to encourage women and girls into non-traditional areas of employment. The minister has spoken before in this place on some of these initiatives. Can the minister provide an update on the Women at Work election commitment?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Public Sector Management, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Consumer Affairs, Minister for Government Enterprises, Minister for Gambling) (14:53): I thank the honourable member for her question. From the outset, I would like to acknowledge the hard work of the Office for Women in pursuing Women at Work initiatives. Its enthusiasm, passion and dedication never cease to amaze me, and I know that it has been supported by the Department of Further Education, Employment, Science and Technology, which has also very much embraced the women at work initiative.

We know that there are often many barriers that women face in taking up non-traditional trades, increasing the retention of women in trades or developing women's leadership skills in these fields. While advances have been made, to date they have been small and we still find that women are very much under-represented in those particular fields. I am very pleased that there are some companies out there that have thought creatively of ways to come up with innovative projects that seek to attract more women into their organisations.

As members will remember, I have spoken before about the first project under the Women at Work initiative, the Powerful Pathways for Women program with ETSA Utilities. Powerful Pathways includes the training of 15 women from the northern suburbs and it began in March 2011. The training program comprises a Certificate II in Women's Education, a Certificate I in Information Technology and a Certificate I in Electrotechnology, and also includes 10 days of practical training at the ETSA Training Centre at Davenport near Port Augusta.

I understand that ETSA will offer suitable applicants an apprenticeship at the completion of training, hopefully putting them on a path towards a successful career in the electrotechnology industry. I am advised that this program will be completed early next month, and I very much look forward to hearing about the success of the program.

I note here that, recently in this place, on 9 June, I stated that I was soon to visit the ETSA participants. In fact, that was incorrect. My scheduled visit was with the participants of the second Women at Work initiative, and I was very pleased last Thursday to visit the participants, both men and women, of the Constructing Roads to a Bright Future initiative. The initiative trains unemployed Aboriginal people in the north in the area of construction.

This state and federal government funded initiative supports seven unemployed Aboriginal women to participate in a 10-week pre-employment program. When I visited there last week, the women were finishing up; they were right at the tail end of the pre-employment part of the program. I understand that, this week, they are working on-site on the Urban Superway Project with the engineering service provider, John Holland Group.

It was wonderful to be able to spend time speaking with the women participants. They seem to have come an extraordinarily long way in only 10 weeks. They expressed to me how much they valued the opportunity to be part of the program and talked very much about how much they had learned and also how much they had enjoyed themselves. They informed me that they had had practical learning as well as technical training opportunities in areas of civil construction with the support of the Mining, Energy and Engineering Academy (MEEA). Perhaps the most exciting thing about this initiative is the potential to gain full-time employment with the John Holland Group.

The women I met with were being mentored and trained as part of the pre-employment program. The program delivers job readiness training, employment opportunities and ongoing mentoring support for participants. I was really pleased to be able to provide some dedicated funding to provide one-on-one mentoring to the female participants, which is a key element in the program. Some of the women have obviously had some very challenging life issues, and I think personal mentoring is a great way to help them regain their confidence and learn new skills.

I was delighted to learn that participants were also given leadership training, education about their rights in the workplace, computer training, resume writing and interview techniques. I am advised that participants will graduate from the Constructing Roads to a Bright Future initiative in July.

The Constructing Roads to a Bright Future initiative is funded and supported by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, the Department of Further Education, Employment, Science and Technology, the Office for Women, the John Holland Group and MEEA. I would certainly like to take this opportunity to congratulate MEEA and the John Holland Group for their initiative and leadership in this particular area, and I urge all companies to be inspired by these stories and to think of ways they might be able to encourage greater participation of women in non-traditional trades.

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