Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about the surfboard manufacturing industry. There are approximately 200 surfboard manufacturers located between Burleigh Heads and Coolangatta on the southern Gold Coast. Some are small manufacturers producing one or two hand shaped boards per week, and there are also larger manufacturers producing much greater numbers.

The Gold Coast surf industry as a whole is a significant contributor to the local economy. According to an AEC group report prepared late last year for the Gold Coast City Council the total output of the industry in 2007-08, both direct and flow-on, was estimated to be approximately $3.3 billion, creating approximately 21,760 full-time equivalent employment positions on the Gold Coast. The industry contributes approximately 9.4 per cent to the local economy and it supports almost 13 per cent of total employment within Gold Coast city.

Without the board shapers, an integral element of this industry, there is the potential for the rest of the industry to suffer. Over the course of the last year I have worked closely with board manufacturers on issues affecting them. The issue raised consistently by all the board manufacturers I have spoken to is the difficulty they have in attracting labour. In their view, the most significant factors are the lack of recognition of the skills required and the lack of formal qualifications. The difficulty in attracting and retaining workers has meant that manufacturers have had to look overseas to countries such as Japan in order to recruit skilled workers. This in turn has created additional financial and administrative burdens on these businesses because they have to cover the costs of temporarily relocating overseas workers to Australia as well as dealing with visa and entry requirements.

Ideally, the void in skilled labour should be filled by Australian workers, and the coalition is clearly committed to this objective. In April this year, the Leader of the Opposition visited local manufacturer D’Arcy Surfboards. He met with representatives of D’Arcy Surfboards, DMS Shapes and Chris Garrett Shapes and saw and heard firsthand the training and related issues. As a result, the coalition committed to the funding of a pilot program in surfboard manufacturing training, to the value of half a million dollars, on the southern Gold Coast. This program, had it gone ahead, had the potential to be rolled out throughout the country, alleviating the skill shortage and giving the surfboard manufacturing industry a more stable future nationwide.

The government did not bother to match our commitment or engage with what is an important industry, as outlined earlier, for local employment and economic growth. As a result, local board shapers, manufacturers and industry representatives have moved to address the issue themselves and last week established a steering committee to work towards the formation of the Australian Surf Craft Industry Association. The meeting to establish the association was well attended with around 150 representatives, including from Surfing Australia, Andrew Stark and Chris Symington, CEO and sport development manager respectively, and the general manager of Connecting Southern Gold Coast, Jim Wilson.

I would like to acknowledge the hard work of the local industry which has led to this important development and assure them that they can count on my support. Specifically, I would like to thank Stuart D’Arcy and Michelle Blaun, from D’Arcy Surfboards—(Time expired)