Construction Industry Training Fund (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill

Tuesday August 27, 2024

Mr BELL (Mount Gambier) (20:23): I just want to make a few comments on the Construction Industry Training Fund (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill and put on the record where I will be voting and where I sit on this issue.

Before I begin, there has been a lot of talk, certainly today, about the CFMEU, and I want to highlight (to probably the one person who is listening to this) that the forestry sector is a section within the CFMEU. I have only had very positive interactions with our forestry union. Whilst we do not always agree, it is the largest employer in my region. I have only ever seen them fight for, as a representative body, the workers in terms of safety, in terms of pay and in terms of conditions. I just want to be very clear that, again, whilst we do not always see eye to eye—in fact, very rarely do we see eye to eye—I do recognise the efforts that they make on behalf of the largest employment group in our region and the largest number of employers in our region.

In terms of the construction industry and in particular the CITB, I have been privileged over my journey to see the very good that can come out of a Construction Industry Training Board. I firmly believe that pathways start at a school level. The CITB was a very active part of a constructions pathways program that a very good friend of mine Paul Jupe put together in Mount Gambier at Grant High School where they would actually build a transportable house on site with all the trades that go with that and then sell that transportable and the money would be reinvested back into the training program.

The Doorways2Construction program, which is what it was, brought students from all around our region to Grant High School, and different schools one day a week, under Paul Jupe's tutelage and then Mike's tutelage after that, would work on constructing this project. That would not have been possible with education department funding alone. The CITB played a crucial role in providing top-up funding and extra resources to come on board and support that program.

In fact, from that pathways program, many of our employers who started as a student at many schools but did their construction work at Grant High School have gone on to own their own business and now employ apprentices of their own. That is the power of having a pathways program being supported by an industry like the CITB industry. Of course, they get their funding from a charge on the construction activities around the state.

Of course, I also want to talk about Greg Megaw and our local group training, which is GTE (Group Training Employment). Again, I have seen the power of young kids coming through a school system, getting their apprenticeship, and if they do not quite gel with one employer—an employer may go through financial difficulties or have a marriage bust-up or some other external factor that nobody knows about at the time—having that safety net of GTE there, which is the actual employer, being able to move that young person to another employer has been very powerful in keeping that young person in their apprenticeship and providing a suitable outcome.

Those reasons are many and varied, but to have the safety net of GTE, with Greg Megaw—who came after Brenton Lewis, who was a long-time CEO of that organisation—again proves the power of a community working together in the interests of young people. At the end of the day, that is what I think it is all about. We do have a housing shortage. We need more young people coming through the training sector, getting apprenticeships, and I genuinely believe the Construction Industry Training Board plays a major part within that.

Again, my politics may be a little bit different but I just want to see the best outcome for young people. I understand what the opposition is trying to do, and I just want to put on record that I will be supporting the amendments of the opposition because I firmly believe that that is in the best interests of young people coming through a system that should not be politicised with appointments. I think it really should be about how we get more young people into a training pathway and, again, that starts at the school level.

I think the CITB has done a wonderful job over many years in promoting that and doing exactly what I am talking about. Going forward, I obviously want to encourage more young people to look at apprenticeships and trades because there is a serious pipeline there and opportunities where young people can make very good futures for themselves, for their families and the community that they are involved in. With those brief comments, I conclude my remarks.

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