STATEMENTS BY SENATORS
Senator WHITEAKER (Western Australia) (13:12): It's always a good day when the Prime Minister visits Western Australia, and it's an even better day when he comes to my neck of the woods in Perth's southern suburbs. I can tell you that his visit to Henderson a couple of weeks ago with the Deputy Prime Minister really meant something to Western Australians. The Prime Minister stood at Henderson with Premier Roger Cook and the Deputy Prime Minister and confirmed the site for the new Defence precinct.
It is backed by a $12 billion investment from our government, and it will support 10,000 jobs over the next decade. It will support the workers who will build the Navy's new frigates and the Army's landing craft and sustain the submarines that will keep our nation safe. And it'll all happen just 10 minutes down the road from my local community.
Defence is on track to become Western Australia's second-largest industry within the decade. In a state that, for a long time, has powered the national economy by digging things out of the ground, this is a remarkable thing to be able to say. We're making more things in WA and building Australia's defence-manufacturing future.
For a long time, families in Cockburn, Kwinana and Rockingham have been told that, to get a good job that pays well, you've got to head up north, and that a career in heavy industry means spending a lot of time in airports. But this investment in Henderson opens up more good, skilled jobs closer to home for so many Western Australians. The question I get asked most about this work in Henderson is not whether or not it will happen but who will do the work, because the ships don't weld themselves.
We'll need thousands of welders, fabricators, sparkies and fitters, along with engineers and technicians. Many of those workers have not finished school yet, and some of them are still probably spending more time negotiating with their parents about whether they'll be allowed to go trick or treating on Halloween or perhaps what they want on their Christmas list.
That's why this work has to start now. When the kids that are in school today are thinking about the jobs that they might like to do in the future, it's really important that this defence industry is part of that conversation. The work that the state Labor government is doing is one of the things that I'm really proud of.
They have implemented a year 9 career taster program, putting students in real workshops before they choose their senior high school subjects. The WA Labor government has recently announced that they'll be expanding that project, investing $3 million to include defence industries. I think that, when a 14-year-old picks up a welding torch and thinks, 'I could actually do this myself,' it's worth its weight in gold.
That curiosity, of course, only gets you so far. Training the workers who are going to do this work, giving them the skills that they need, is really important. What's going to get people into those jobs is TAFE.
Our government has invested in free TAFE for thousands of courses, many in these really crucial industries that we need. Between January 2024 and March this year, Western Australia recorded 87,004 free TAFE enrolments. That's a really impressive number.
The target was more like 22,000. We've beaten it by nearly four times. In most portfolios, missing a number by that much might earn you a long afternoon of questioning in Senate estimates, but this is a target that I think we can be really proud of exceeding.
It tells you that thousands of Western Australians are keen and ready to do this work. In removing the cost barrier that comes with TAFE courses, we have been able to give them that opportunity. Fee-free courses in Western Australia include everything from cybersecurity to electronics and engineering.
These are exactly the kinds of skills that the Henderson Defence Precinct will run on. South Metropolitan TAFE is just down the road from the Henderson Defence Precinct, and the TAFE's naval base campus has 45 welding bays, low-fee trade courses and incentives of up to $20,000 for every defence apprentice an employer takes on. The cost of a course should not be the barrier that stands in the way of a young person getting the skills that they need.