Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to speak on the educational opportunities in naval shipbuilding. Every South Australian member and senator has been lobbying very hard for defence work for our state. The recently announced continuous-build strategy for naval surface vessels gives decades of certainty to our shipbuilding workforce and to industry and is very good news for South Australia. The coalition government is bringing forward the future frigates program to 2020, three years earlier than scheduled under Labor. We will also bring forward the construction of offshore patrol vessels by two years with a continuous onshore build commencing in 2018. Bringing forward the offshore patrol vessels and future frigates will preserve up to 1,000 jobs that would otherwise have been lost and will guarantee up to 2½ thousand long-term shipbuilding jobs, primarily in South Australia.

These projects, worth some $39 billion, will be good for economic growth, and the work on the future frigates is a strong vote of confidence in South Australia's shipbuilding capability. Navy capability is also mooted to be the centrepiece of the upcoming Defence white paper. Beyond the frigates and the patrol vessels, there will be other projects in the future, not least of which is the future submarines. A continuous-build strategy for naval surface vessels means there will be a need to ensure a supply of skilled workers to design and build those vessels. If South Australia is going to take best advantage of the opportunities in naval shipbuilding, we need to start looking at what we can do at an educational level to prepare for those workforce needs.

The Canadian experience is illustrative. In 2010 the Canadian government announced a new national shipbuilding procurement strategy that shifted naval shipbuilding from a project-by-project basis to a long-term enterprise. This strategy identified Canada's future naval shipbuilding procurements and divided them into large and small vessels. Two shipyards were competitively selected to build the large vessels, with smaller vessels and the significant maintenance, refit and repair contracts then available to all Canadian shipyards. In 2014 a maritime security program workshop specifically identified the levels of human capital that the NSPS would require. Key takeaways included the need for greater cooperation among private, public and government stakeholders; improvements in training technology to incorporate web-based training, distance learning and simulation; and the development of centres of excellence in shipbuilding.

Since the Canadian shipbuilding strategy was announced, industry stakeholders have incorporated education and skills training into their organisations. Skills and training related to the industry are also promoted within a variety of Canadian colleges and universities. Canadian universities have been able to gain millions in industry support for their naval architecture and maritime engineering higher degrees. The lesson is this: by making naval shipbuilding a long-term enterprise, Canada has been able to plan ahead and put into place education systems that ensure that it has the skilled workforce it needs to support that shipbuilding. With Australia heading down a similar path with its continuous-build strategy, we should be planning to do the same.

A number of analyses have been done on the defence workforce and the skills needed for the future—most notably, in 2012, the Building Australia's defence supply capabilities report and, last year, the Defence industry South Australia—workforce strategy for 2014 to 2020. While both of these reports focused on the policies and programs of their day, they include some common ground on how to enhance and continue the productivity of the defence engineering workforce: (1) promoting the defence industry as a career option and raising the profile of pathways to defence industry; (2) ensuring alignment of existing STEM programs in schools, possibly by an audit undertaken between Defence and the Office of the Chief Scientist; (3) having better engagement between the defence industry and educational providers in the case of STEM needs, including the use of work placement programs to raise awareness and develop foundational skills; (4) focusing on upskilling existing workers, whether through vocational education and training programs or through specific partnerships with higher education providers; and (5) developing clear planning metrics to prioritise skills that are in demand or decline and to ease the cycle of work as well as supporting the transition of workers from other industries with similar but not identical skill sets.

There is a recognition that forward planning needs to be done and education and training put in place in order to provide the skilled workforce for naval shipbuilding. With South Australia slated to undertake a significant amount of naval shipbuilding and maintenance work, we should be putting systems in place at all three levels of education—that is at the school level, at the vocational educational and training level and at the higher education level—to make sure we can supply that workforce. There are already a number of programs in place designed to assist people to develop the skills necessary for a career in the defence industry.

At the secondary school level there is the South Australian Advanced Technology Schools Pathways Program. This is aimed at introducing students to the skills required for defence industry careers, with a focus on encouraging students to study mathematics, science and engineering. It aims to increase the pool of young people ready to move from school into further education and apprenticeships, internships, scholarships and part-time work-study combinations. The increase in professional and vocational pathways will provide greater workforce capacity to support the growing defence industries in South Australia. There are 19 schools involved in this program. The lead school for the southern district is Aberfoyle Park High School in my electorate. Funding for this program has been extended for the current financial year but will be evaluated as part of the Defence white paper review.

When we look at the area of vocational education and training we see that, while there are a number of engineering qualifications offered at TAFEs, there are currently no specific defence engineering or fabrication courses offered either in South Australia or across the country. So there is a real opportunity here in the area of vocational education and training, whether it is done through TAFE or whether it is done through an industry collaboration, which is what is done in civil construction or in the motor trades area. There is a real opportunity to make sure that there is a strong pathway on the VET side.

Similarly when we look at the university side what we see is that many of the universities are actually down-scaling their involvement in the area of naval engineering and maritime architecture. The Australian Maritime College in Hobart offers a wide range of maritime engineering courses and allows for collaborative degrees with Flinders University. Flinders offers a Bachelor of Engineering (Naval Architecture) in collaboration with the AMC but that is marked as having no future intake as of 1 January this year. The University of South Australia and the University of Adelaide both offer bachelor-level engineering qualifications but none with a naval or defence specialisation. The University of Adelaide offers a Master of Marine Engineering at the postgraduate level. The Future Submarine Industry Skills Plan noted that as of 2013 only the University of Queensland, the University of South Australia, ADFA and the RMIT offered higher education courses in systems engineering to support the defence engineering workforce. As of 2015 ADFA still offers this course, while the University of Queensland has reduced it from a separate masters degree to a major within its Master of Engineering Science, and the University of South Australia qualification is no longer taking new intakes.

So when you look at the landscape you see that at a school level the Advanced Technology Schools Pathways Program seems to be a very good program and you do have schools like the Heights School which have a very specific focus on defence industry, but its ongoing status is questionable after June 2016. There may be an opportunity to have something like an Australian Technical College—the old Howard government program—really focusing specifically on making a strong pathway into defence industry. At the VET level there are no dedicated offerings, either in South Australia or elsewhere. And at a university level Flinders appears to be wrapping up its degree, leaving the Master of Marine Engineering at the University of Adelaide the only dedicated offering. We have made a big announcement on future frigates. There should be a big announcement on future submarines next year. There are lots of opportunities for South Australia at the school level, at the vocational education and training level and at the higher education level to seize the opportunities of the jobs that will be there for the future and make sure that there are strong pathways for students coming through.