Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As part of its response to the global financial crisis the government has identified 20 priority employment areas in Australia, and my electorate of Fremantle comprises a large part of one such area, the south-west corridor, a zone of activity with a gross regional product exceeding $20 billion, or one in every six dollars generated in Western Australia. The Rudd Labor government, even while wrestling with the economic situation, has committed to long-term planning and investment in skills, particularly for young people.

In my electorate, especially in the burgeoning city of Cockburn, there has been a commitment of necessary investment in innovation, education and training, with more than $3.2 million allocated to the South Metropolitan Youth Link Community Services, or SMYL; the Jandakot College of Electrical Training; and the Fremantle Education Centre. This is money for vocational education and training, a network of digital classrooms, training workshops for remote Indigenous communities and training for skills that will be in demand and that will give a future to many of our young people. In the area of supporting innovation, Climate Ready grants totalling a combined $3 million were awarded to Quickstep Technologies for a resin spray transfer project that will dramatically reduce time and cost for manufacturing carbon fibre parts for land, aerospace and marine vehicles and to Magellan Powertronics for the development of a solar-hybrid power-conditioning unit designed to store off-peak surplus energy gathered from solar generators and single-wire earth-return powerlines.

There are massive but sensitive projects, like Gorgon and Pluto, slated for the north of Western Australia, projects to drive the Australian economy into the future. They will require research and planning, innovation, design, fabrication and transport support, as well as sophisticated expertise to protect our unique environment and heritage values. We want the south-west corridor to provide much of that support. A recent Keep Australia Working forum saw my colleague Jason Clare, the Parliamentary Secretary for Employment, launch the workforce development plan for local employment in the south-west corridor for the period 2009 to 2024. The south-west group comprises representatives from local government and it has developed the Commonwealth funded workforce development plan and recognised early that productivity and potential in the south-west corridor were constrained by the challenge of attracting and retaining a suitable workforce. The plan recommends an internet portal linking trainers, employers and job providers, a review of public transport infrastructure, a careers and industry expo centre based on the trade coast theme, promotion of the corridor as a place for business and industry and the provision of appropriate encouragement for employers to work with training providers to train local young people. The south-west corridor has been hit by the global financial situation, but has tremendous potential. The government is helping local communities respond in a way that gives us all real grounds for optimism.