Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Sinodinos for his important question in relation to our support for small business and medium-sized businesses, particularly to grow their skills base, to invest in their employees and to develop the types of skills that will enable them to grow their businesses and to pursue new trade opportunities, particularly the types of trade opportunities that are available as the new free trade agreements with China and Korea and Japan and, ultimately, India come on-stream.

Our Industry Skills Fund is providing $664 million of support to Australian businesses to enable them to deliver training to around one-quarter of a million—some 250,000—Australians over the next five years. This will help them to identify the skills they need in their businesses and the skills their employees need. It will help them to be able to grow as businesses and ultimately create more jobs and more opportunity for more Australians. As a key part of the fund, today I have announced that the government will invest $43 million over the next three years in the Industry Skills Fund Skills Adviser Network. The network will provide intensive support to businesses who are looking to grow, especially to grow through the development of their workforce. These skills advisers will provide clear, independent written advice on the skills, needs and opportunities of a business at no cost to those small to medium-sized businesses. It will provide them with the opportunity to see how and where they can invest, be it in accredited or qualified training or through non-accredited opportunities that can still deliver demonstrable benefits to those businesses to reskill their workforces, to upskill their workforces, and to create new opportunities to grow their businesses and their export markets and to create more jobs and opportunities, not just for their existing employees who will benefit but also through that growth and creation of new jobs which is central to the overall ambition of our Industry Skills Fund.