Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm very proud to say that I saw an announcement today from Brendan O'Connor, the Minister for Skills and Training, that the Albanese Labor government has delivered three more Jobs and Skills Councils to help address skills shortages and broader workforce challenges, covering the manufacturing, transport and logistics, and mining and automotive sectors. The JSCs are a network of industry owned and led organisations that will bring together employers and unions to work in partnership with governments and the education and training sectors. This shows the government's ongoing commitment to tripartite leadership to find solutions to the workforce challenges and skills needs that are currently facing industry sectors across Australia. The JSCs will have a strong connection with Jobs and Skills Australia to align workforce planning for their sectors. This is an essential first step in determining job roles, the skills needed and education and training pathways, combining industry specific intelligence from JSCs with JSA's forecasting and modelling. The transport and logistics JSC, Industry Skills Australia, will bring together employer and union leaders from the transport and logistic industries to support workforce planning. This is magnificent.

I'll just go quickly to the board composition of Industry Skills Australia. I know quite a few of the board members: Mr Laurie D'Apice, excellent choice; Mr Nick McIntosh, another excellent choice; Mr Jamie Newlyn, another excellent choice; Mr Mark Diamond, another excellent choice; and Mr Tony Wilks, another excellent choice. I must say that I don't know Mr Northorpe, but, in the company of those characters, what an excellent choice that definitely is. The same can be said for Mr Ronald Devitt, who I have not heard of and never met. In that company, he's another magnificent choice.

Congratulations, Minister O'Connor. It does warm the cockles of my heart because I brought a delegation of transport reps to Canberra to talk about this last year.