Login
iscover
Minister for Defence Industry Melissa Price has made a bid to attract former employees of the fallen automotive giant to ongoing submarine works in South Australia. Speaking on ABC Adelaide on Tuesday morning, she suggested that high-skilled workers left in the lurch by the company's collapse could be attractive candidates for employee shortfalls across the project.
To continue reading the rest of this article, please log in.
Create free account to get unlimited news articles and more!
Citing the government's 2017 Shipbuilding Plan, the minister noted that automotive workers – particularly those with engineering or trade backgrounds – have long been targeted as potential sources of recruitment for the broader defence industry. Though the minister refrained from delving into too much detail on this point, the plan establishes a National Facilitator for the Automotive Skills and Training Initiative. Working in conjunction with the Naval Shipbuilding College, this facilitator actively works to assist workers seeking to transition into a shipbuilding career.
The minister suggested that 240 engineering staff and 130 design professionals could be appropriate for such a transition; although 'bridging or conversion' courses could be required. If so, the Naval Shipbuilding College (which is based out of Osborne, South Australia) could be a suitable stepping stone. The college connects workers with providers of endorsed shipbuilding courses around Australia, which could be necessary given the diversity of skills and qualifications on offer from ex-Holden employees.
While Holden's engineering workforce is split largely between the highly-transferable areas of mechanical and electrical, design staff operate in niche areas such as computer-aided 3D modelling. Particular trades, like boilermaking, are also highly suited to the shipbuilding industry without significant upskilling or additional qualifications.
"The work that we’re doing, together with the Naval Shipbuilding College, the Land Engineering Agency and together with General Motors – we need to obviously do a piece of work where we map the skills and experience of the Holden workforce," Minister Price said.
"And as I said at the outset, I’m not suggesting every single one of those Holden workers is going to be suitable but I guarantee you there’ll be some there that, you know, perhaps with just a small bridging course would actually be capable of working on our very ambitious subs program. But also don’t forget we’re also building nine frigates in South Australia as well."
Though Minister Price focuses exclusively on submarine construction opportunities within SA, many of those jobs are already in question. The comments come as concerns mount over Naval Group's commitment to local contractors, and other positions associated with Adelaide's shipbuilding programs are slated to make the move to Western Australia. Of the two shipbuilding states, significant facilities for carrying out repair and maintenance are already present in the latter (for example, Civmec's facility at Henderson, Perth).
In the interview with ABC's David Bevan, the host pressed Minister Price on when full-cycle docking on Australia's Collins Class submarine (which is currently carried out in Adelaide) was slated for relocation. The minister was unable to give a specific response.
"If you were hoping to get work in the sub maintenance area, you should keep an open mind then because you might have to go work in WA?" asked Bevan.
Minister Price replied, "Well, I think what I’m focused on, as Defence Industry Minister, is we have got 15,000 jobs that we are going to create with our ambitious shipbuilding program. We’ve currently got 4,000. And where we get those people from, frankly, I don’t care. And that’s why talking to Holden is very important because we know that there’s capability with those people who are about to be retrenched."
The last of the Holden redundancies are expected to take place towards the latter half of this year.
