Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, it is a pleasure to see you here late this evening with your guiding hand on the adjournment debate. I rise to address the issue of the demand for skilled workers in my electorate of Port Adelaide and how the Rudd Labor government will ensure that local kids are going to be able to get the qualifications to allow them to meet that demand.

The north-western and northern areas of Adelaide, mostly situated in the electorate of Port Adelaide, are going ahead at a rate of knots. Long lists exist of developments that are mid-way or pending. There is the dredging of the outer harbour that sets the foundation for further growth in South Australian export industries. The Port River Expressway, the new Port River bridges and the Le Fevre Peninsula transport corridor project will greatly ease the burden of those industries wanting to get their goods to the port.

In our community there are significant residential developments, such as the Westwood regeneration project in the north-west corridor and Newport Quays on the Port River. Most obviously perhaps, the port will soon be the site of the construction of the Hobart class air warfare destroyers for our Navy, right next door to the Submarine Corporation site that saw the construction of and continues to maintain and refit our Collins class submarines. These developments and many more are placing significant pressures on local industries to find adequately trained and skilled workers. It is critical that we are able to provide an adequate supply of skilled labour for the success of those ventures. It is equally critical for the health of our local community, however, that we ensure that as many of those local jobs are filled by members of our local community as is possible. As is the case with so many facets of the supply side of our economy, we have some serious challenges in meeting both objectives that arise from the previous government.

The nation’s performance in producing sufficient numbers of maths and science graduates has long been known to be inadequate. In 2003, the Department of Education, Science and Training published a report on the teaching of these subjects that showed a declining proportion of students completing year 12 in what we might call the traditional subjects of advanced maths, physics, chemistry and biology; a shortage of teachers in these subjects; and a lack of confidence among teachers in their capacity to teach these subjects, particularly given advances in cutting-edge sciences such as nanotechnology, biotechnology and the like.

These issues continue to bite in Port Adelaide as well. For an area so rich in job opportunities based on training and education in maths and sciences, not enough of our young people are graduating in those subjects. Schools in the area are doing a fantastic job against many of the key performance indicators such as attendance, literacy and the like, but we need to do more to lift basic numeracy standards. Not enough young people from our area are taking up certificate III or other vocational training courses based on maths and sciences, and not enough again are pursuing equivalent university degrees. This means that the bulk of those great jobs in our area are being filled, and will continue to be filled, by young people from the eastern and other suburbs of Adelaide, if not from outside Adelaide altogether.

The primary years of education are important for building on numeracy, and for instilling in children a basic knowledge of, and enthusiasm for, the sciences. In the secondary years those foundations are built upon to achieve the deep understanding of mathematical and scientific learning that prepares a student for post-school training and education in these areas. The overwhelming bulk of research shows that we need to do more at all levels to equip schools with teachers who are capable of achieving those goals. We need to do more to build the enthusiasm that children and teachers have for maths and science. I am pleased that the Rudd Labor government, through its education revolution, will be moving quickly to deal with the shortage of graduates willing and able to teach maths and sciences. More generally, the government is committed to providing incentives to encourage young Australians to study maths and science at university through various types of HECS relief. This is a critical area for continuing attention by the government—attention that I am confident will be forthcoming from a government so switched on to the importance of education in the future. I am confident that this attention will mean more kids from our area being able to take on some of the exciting, well-paid jobs on offer in the electorate of Port Adelaide, now and well into the future.