Mr BAYLEY – Minister, there is a new renewables training facility listed in the Budget. I’m interested in seeing whether you can confirm that this facility will offer presently missing courses in Tasmania, things such as a full Cert III in Automotive Electric Vehicle Transportation. Also, will it have a heavy focus on wind farm and turbine construction training to ensure that there are local jobs in those industries and skilled jobs don’t go to FIFO workers.
Mr ELLIS – I thought you were opposed to wind farms.
Mr BAYLEY – We’re not at all, minister, that’s just a bit of convenient rhetoric on your behalf.
Mr ELLIS – Which ones do you support?
Mr BAYLEY – We support plenty. Answer the question, if you don’t mind. I’m the one asking the questions.
Mr ELLIS – Okay, good one. We actually support the renewable industry, unlike the Greens, who want to pull the plug on Lake Peddar and stop every other wind farm that’s being developed in Tasmania. It’s quite an interesting question, that you actually want to skill up an industry that you’re trying to shut down.
You are correct, we’re going to invest $4 million in terms of our state‑of-the-art industry training facility on the north‑west coast. We’re going to partner with industry, and will have a dedicated focus on renewable energy skills. We think that there are some really good models available to us already in terms of partnering with industry.
I pay tribute to the agriculture industry on the north‑west coast that was critical in providing input with our steering committee for the Freer Farm Agricultural Centre of Excellence at Burnie. We’ve got good opportunities to partner together to support students in our region to participate in the renewable energy future if the Greens don’t shut it down. We will continue to seek to leverage additional Australian government funding as part of that project under the National Skills Agreement.
In terms of the specific courses you’ve asked about automotive –
Mr BAYLEY – EV in particular.
Mr ELLIS – It’ll depend on the kind of approach that we take. We’re continuing to scope this with the industry. We have opportunities to provide EV training, probably more about automotive facilities that we have around the state, but we have an open mind in terms of what industry is seeking the skills that they will need. There are big opportunities in terms of transmission, which of course the Greens oppose as well. I might pass over to the team at Skills to talk further around the kind of partnerships that we’re looking to leverage and what that might mean for courses.
Ms PATERSON – We’re looking to establish an industry‑led approach to the north‑west training facility. There are also opportunities under the National Skills Agreement to potentially leverage some national skills funding contribution towards that centre as well. The idea would be to work collaboratively with TasTAFE and industry to design the future training offering to meet needs both for now and also for emerging industries.
Mr ELLIS – I might look back to Mr Dreher in terms our TasTAFE automotive opportunities that we have there.
Mr BAYLEY – Specifically around EVs, is the question.
Mr DREHER – In relation to EVs, we do short courses in EV at the moment and EV servicing and EV safety. We work closely with industry on those. The need for a Certificate III will emerge over the next few years and we’ll be looking at it, but I couldn’t make a commitment on it.
Mr BAYLEY – You haven’t got a commitment to make that in that space. What about the timeframe for the establishment of the centre in the north-west? When’s it going to be up and running and is it fully funded to the point where it can get up and running?
Mr ELLIS – I mentioned before, we are making a contribution of $4 million, but we think there’s some big opportunities to leverage Commonwealth funding in this space as well. The Commonwealth has rolled out five of their 31 national centres of excellence, all in other jurisdictions, and we think that there’s big opportunities to work together, noting that Tasmania is a real renewables. We’re continuing to work with them as part of the national –
Mr BAYLEY – So is it contingent on funding partnering?
Mr ELLIS – All I’ll say there is that we think that there’s further opportunities because if we can partner together, it will grow our capability. We were obviously the lead agency in terms of delivering the water and energy trade centre of excellence here in the south. But where we can work with the Commonwealth to leverage additional funds, we get more bang for our buck and we’ll get an even better facility for our learners. It’s also important in terms of timeframe, we’ll be working with our industry partners around that, so in terms of our industry steering committee, we’re working through the process of establishing that and we’ve got some great partnerships that we’ll be able to build. I might look to –
Mr BAYLEY – It’s already behind though, isn’t it? Have you got a date that you’re –
Mr ELLIS – What are you talking about? We committed to it at the last election and we funded it in the first Budget. Behind what?
Mr BAYLEY – Establishing. Have you got a date?
Mr ELLIS – We made the commitment at the last election. At the first opportunity, we’re providing funding for it in the Budget just as we committed to at the election and we’re looking forward to rolling that out. I’ll look to maybe Ms Paterson in terms of anything further to add.
Ms PATERSON – Through you, minister, I can probably add a little bit more around the process under the National Skills Agreement for attracting that matched funding through the Commonwealth. The specific policy initiatives component of the National Skills Agreement requires an implementation plan to be agreed with the Commonwealth before we can release that funding or have that funding committed, if you like. We’re working through that process at the moment as quickly as we can.
Mr BAYLEY – When do you expect to finish that implementation plan?
Ms PATERSON – It’ll depend on the negotiations with the Commonwealth, I think. I would expect that we would have certainty of their position hopefully by the end of this year.
Mr ELLIS – We’ve had good conversations already with the with the new federal minister. A shout out to him, he’s actually a West Coast Tasmanian, so obviously one of the real heartland areas for our country for renewable electricity generation. I know how passionate he is in supporting our state, too.
