Mount Gambier TAFE upgrade

Wednesday June 22, 2022

Mr BELL: I refer you to Budget Paper 4, Volume 4, page 79, investing expenditure. Minister, is there a time frame on the Mount Gambier TAFE upgrade? Related to that, do you have any thought or initial comments on the management and perhaps governance structure of the technical college and the TAFE being on the same site?

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: I thank the member for the question. I will seek some advice on the time frame. I am told the funding is set out in the budget for the 2023-24 year, so we would expect that that upgrade would begin in 2023 (next year), which is good news. In terms of the governance model with the technical college, we are deep in considering that now would be my answer.

I will happily take some advice about how that model might best work from the member for Mount Gambier and local education institutions like UniSA and of course TAFE and also from some of the private providers there who provide some of that training that is so vital to industries like forestry. However, although they are separate projects they are co-located, and I want them to be able to work together. The worst outcome here is that they operate completely in isolation of each other, which I do not want.

I would be happy to come back to the member once we have done a bit more work on how that governance model could look, and seek his advice on that. It is something we would want to seek advice about from the local community and representatives from UniSA as well to make sure they agree we have got it right. It is a very good point.