Ms McCARTHY - 2005-08-24
The Martin government is committed to building the waterfront project. Can you inform the House as to what preparations are in place to meet work force demands and build the skills of Territorians, in particular the skills of Aboriginal people to work on the project?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Arnhem for her question, which is very timely. because, aAt lunch time, I was privileged to be a witness at a signing of a most important Mmemorandum of Uunderstanding between the Larrakia Nation Aboriginal Corporation, the Larrakia Development Corporation, the Northern Land Council and the Territory Construction Association. This MOU will set out the basis for a collaborative relationship to absolutely maximise the participation of Larrakia people and other indigenous people in training for employment and business opportunities for Larrakia-owned or managed businesses on the Darwin City Waterfront development.
Nothing could be more appropriate than a major project such as we have with the waterfront occurring on Larrakia land, that the Larrakia would be participants in that project as employees. The partnership follows on from the success that was witnessed with similar partnership projects for the railway and the LNG plant at Wickham Point. We see it not only important in terms of the success of the Darwin City Waterfront pProject but, much more importantly, in the longer term, the success of those individuals gaining those job skills and adding, in a very complementary fashion, to the value of our work force overall in the longer term.
The $1.1bn Darwin City Waterfront public/ /private partnership will, of course, bring with it more than a decade of jobs in construction work for Territorians. It will see the creation of many further jobs in the tourism and hospitality industry with, of course, expected spin-offs into the private business sector across the board.
The Department of Employment, Education and Training has already met with representatives of Barclay Mowlem, Sitzler Bros and the Territory Construction Association to discuss envisaged work force requirements, including those employment opportunities that would lend themselves immediately to indigenous employees. That meeting covered work force planning, labour market forecasting, indigenous opportunities, long- term and short- term training opportunities, apprenticeships and traineeships, and is similar to the work undertaken prior to the railway and Bechtel and, of course, sharing all of that employment data during construction.
The Department of Employment, Education and Training will assist those contractors with the provision of labour market information and training advice throughout the duration of the project, and use its labour market analysis model to provide a demand and supply model and assessment as the project progresses. The department will further assist with estimates of training needs based on work force availability and in-training figures. The types of things they could do include pre-vocational type activities for a couple of months to get the participant used to the nature of the work that they might be engaged in, and give them some ready-made skills in order to work safely on a major project such as this.
I congratulate each of the participants. They have a solid track record now. Without singling any of them out, the Territory Construction Association has been tremendously supportive and, of course, Larrakia. The Northern Land Council – this is a quite relatively new role for them – as an organisation historically dealing with questions of land tenure, land ownership, access to land, setting up their own employment branch within their organisation has been a terrific and effective model. I congratulate them for that. It should send a signal to the other land councils that this is a good way to go forward. It is a new and refreshing role for a major organisation such as the NLC. I would love it if the Anindilyakwa, Tiwi and Central Land Councils were to follow the model and set up their own employment units.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Arnhem for her question, which is very timely. because, aAt lunch time, I was privileged to be a witness at a signing of a most important Mmemorandum of Uunderstanding between the Larrakia Nation Aboriginal Corporation, the Larrakia Development Corporation, the Northern Land Council and the Territory Construction Association. This MOU will set out the basis for a collaborative relationship to absolutely maximise the participation of Larrakia people and other indigenous people in training for employment and business opportunities for Larrakia-owned or managed businesses on the Darwin City Waterfront development.
Nothing could be more appropriate than a major project such as we have with the waterfront occurring on Larrakia land, that the Larrakia would be participants in that project as employees. The partnership follows on from the success that was witnessed with similar partnership projects for the railway and the LNG plant at Wickham Point. We see it not only important in terms of the success of the Darwin City Waterfront pProject but, much more importantly, in the longer term, the success of those individuals gaining those job skills and adding, in a very complementary fashion, to the value of our work force overall in the longer term.
The $1.1bn Darwin City Waterfront public/ /private partnership will, of course, bring with it more than a decade of jobs in construction work for Territorians. It will see the creation of many further jobs in the tourism and hospitality industry with, of course, expected spin-offs into the private business sector across the board.
The Department of Employment, Education and Training has already met with representatives of Barclay Mowlem, Sitzler Bros and the Territory Construction Association to discuss envisaged work force requirements, including those employment opportunities that would lend themselves immediately to indigenous employees. That meeting covered work force planning, labour market forecasting, indigenous opportunities, long- term and short- term training opportunities, apprenticeships and traineeships, and is similar to the work undertaken prior to the railway and Bechtel and, of course, sharing all of that employment data during construction.
The Department of Employment, Education and Training will assist those contractors with the provision of labour market information and training advice throughout the duration of the project, and use its labour market analysis model to provide a demand and supply model and assessment as the project progresses. The department will further assist with estimates of training needs based on work force availability and in-training figures. The types of things they could do include pre-vocational type activities for a couple of months to get the participant used to the nature of the work that they might be engaged in, and give them some ready-made skills in order to work safely on a major project such as this.
I congratulate each of the participants. They have a solid track record now. Without singling any of them out, the Territory Construction Association has been tremendously supportive and, of course, Larrakia. The Northern Land Council – this is a quite relatively new role for them – as an organisation historically dealing with questions of land tenure, land ownership, access to land, setting up their own employment branch within their organisation has been a terrific and effective model. I congratulate them for that. It should send a signal to the other land councils that this is a good way to go forward. It is a new and refreshing role for a major organisation such as the NLC. I would love it if the Anindilyakwa, Tiwi and Central Land Councils were to follow the model and set up their own employment units.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016