Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My state of South Australia has been on the front line of the economic vandalism that this government has embarked upon during its history, with two prime ministers, three defence ministers, multiple other ministerial changes and the like; but also, accompanying that, an assault on our industrial capacity and our manufacturing workforce. We have seen this most starkly in the automotive industry, which is facing a devastating closedown. I am right on the front line of that with Holden in my electorate. I have also seen it in the steel industry in places like Whyalla and, of course, we have also seen it in shipbuilding in South Australia, with government's inability to build the two supply ships in Australia and, with that, that terrible wind-down of our shipbuilding workforce. We have seen that not just in South Australia, but around the country in places like Forgacs and in Williamstown with BAE. It is a tremendously regretted diminution of skills, skills formation and the technical ability of the country.

Increasingly, in South Australia we are looking at the shipbuilding workforce being diminished even further. At the moment, ASC in South Australia has 1,500 employees—1,100 permanent, 23 apprentices, 345 contractors. There have been 1,000 or so jobs lost in recent times. As the last air warfare destroyer is completed, we are looking down the barrel of an estimated 500 or so manufacturing jobs and white-collar technical jobs going out of those yards.

So it is of enormous concern, I think, when we read the government's Naval shipbuilding plan, which is being touted by the government every question time, during the visits to South Australia by the Prime Minister and by the member for Sturt, who is the minister in this area. If you read their shipbuilding plan, in particular their chapter on the naval shipbuilding workforce, on page 67 it states:

South Australian shipbuilders will need to increase their workforce by some 3 600 staff from anticipated minimum levels in 2021, with a strong concentration on the skilled trades.

It goes on to mention fabricators, welders, electricians, carpenters, pipe welders and professional staff, including managers and naval engineers, and the like. Later, it says there will be a further increase from 2022 when you get the combination of future frigates and future submarines, peaking at a figure of around 5,226. So what we are looking at is an enormous increase and an enormous sudden demand for skilled workers. One wonders where these workers are going to be sourced from.

This report gives us little confidence that the government is preparing properly, I think. There is a lot of language in this report about using automotive workers and about, perhaps, using workers from the mining and gas production industries, or rehiring former naval shipbuilding workers. But there is no real plan. There is a real guts behind all this. There is no talk of exactly who might employ the apprentices. Startling enough, on page 77 there is a clause which actually recommends the government is going to talk to the ACTU and the relevant unions in this area about those workforce requirements.

One wants them to get on and do that—to talk to the unions, to talk to all the other stakeholders and to actually come up with real meat and bones behind this plan and to actually start training people and start putting the pressure on both the government and industry to make sure this workforce is there. My great worry is we will wake up after this terrible, devastating economic famine in South Australia and find that these skilled workers have not been trained and that we face desperate skill shortages just as we, in 2020 to 2025, are looking for a shipbuilding workforce. (Time expired)