DALE, Mr Christopher, General Manager, Strategy and Design, MEGT (Australia) Ltd FOLEY, Ms Bernadette, Group Executive, Professional Standards and Engineering Practice, Engineers Australia Committee met at 0 8 : 30 CHAIR ( Ms Scrymgour ): I declare open this hearing of the Joint Standing Committee on Northern Australia. I begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet, the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people of Ngunnawal country, and pay my respects to their elders, past and present. These are public proceedings being videostreamed live by the parliament's website, and a Hansard transcript is being made. I remind witnesses that, in giving evidence to the committee, they are protected by parliamentary privilege. It is unlawful for anyone to threaten or disadvantage a witness on account of evidence given to a committee, and such action may be treated as a contempt. It is a contempt to give false or misleading evidence. Witnesses also have a right to request to be heard in camera. If a witness objects to answering a question, they should state the ground upon which the objection is made and the committee will determine whether it will insist on an answer, having regard to the ground which is claimed. If the committee determines to insist on an answer, a witness may request that the answer be given in camera. I welcome representatives from MEGT (Australia) Ltd and Engineers Australia. I understand that information on parliamentary privilege and the protection of witnesses giving evidence to a committee has been provided to you. I invite you to make a short opening statement and, at the conclusion of any remarks, I'll invite members of the committee to ask questions. Mr Dale : Good morning, Chair and members of the committee. First of all, thank you for the opportunity to appear today. MEGT, as you may or may not know, is a national not-for-profit organisation specialising in apprenticeships and workforce development. We've been delivering professions now across the country for over 40 years, and we have supported over 1.5 million apprentices and trainees across Australia via nearly a quarter of a million employers, including regional and remote communities in northern Australia. Here are some statistics related to northern Australia. Since 2006, across Western Australia, we've supported nearly 102,000 apprentices and 5,450 school based apprentices. In Queensland, we've actually supported almost 362,000 apprentices and 53,494 school based traineeships since 2006. I welcome the committee's focus on preparing northern Australia for emerging industries in every area examined, including renewable energy, critical minerals, defence, infrastructure, exports and decommissioning. However, the shortage of skilled workers remains a constraint. While capital, policy intent and projects are increasingly aligned, the workforce pipeline is not. The evidence today shows Australia is currently experiencing the most severe skills shortage in decades. Looking at job skills in Australia, around 32 per cent of occupations are in national shortage, predominantly in trades and technical roles. At the same time, we see the apprenticeship system that supplies those skills is under strain. Apprenticeship commencements have fallen to less than 0.9 per cent of the workforce, and around half of trade apprentices do not complete their apprenticeships. For northern Australia, where projects are remote, labour markets are thinner and reliance on fly-in fly-out workforces is already high. These trends pose a direct risk to delivery, costs and community benefit. Our message is that northern Australia's workforce challenge means, without targeted action, the new industries will compete for a limited skilled workforce, increasing costs, causing project delays and raising reliance on temporary labour instead of building local capability. As the committee would assume from our submission, the focus is strengthening the entire apprenticeship and traineeship ecosystem rather than isolated programs for individual industries. In MEGT, we've drawn decades of experience, and we recommend a four-part approach. The first part is to review the upfront risks and costs for employers, especially for the SMEs across northern Australia. The second part is that we propose to make apprenticeships financially viable. Living costs and low wages drive attrition, especially in the first two years of an apprenticeship. To attract the young people and create changes to trades, vital for northern Australia, apprenticeships must compete effectively with other work or study options. For the third part, we recommend that we should expand structured mentoring and support services. MEGT's experience, supported by independent evaluation, shows that unsupportive workplaces and lack of guidance are leading causes of cancellations. Targeted mentoring, especially for young people, First Nations apprentices, women entering male dominated trades and apprentices in remote areas, significantly improves completion rates, new contract retention rates and employer confidence. For the fourth part, we recommend simplifying the system to improve access for regional employers. In closing my opening remarks, northern Australia's future development depends on its people. Successful emerging industries require urgent investment in the skills system. With proper support, apprenticeships and traineeships remain Australia's proven solution for building large-scale technical capability. We look forward to working with the committee, the government and Australian communities to ensure that northern Australia's growth is supported by skilled, local and sustainable workforces. I welcome any questions. CHAIR: Deputy chair. Ms PRICE: Thanks for being here and thanks, MEGT, for supporting our young people and giving them a future. It is terrific. I'm interested in your four recommendations. Thanks very much for making that as succinct as possible. We all know about remoteness and the difficulties of getting around northern Australia. Can you explain to the committee your experience of supporting apprentices in these remote areas. If we are to increase the pool or increase the number of apprentices in northern Australia to be able to support emerging industries, I think it would be good for us to understand what the difficulties are for organisations like yours to support apprentices. At the end of the day, if we don't have more people living in the north, we're really dealing with the people who live there already, so we have to increase the pool of apprentices. That could mean more Indigenous apprentices or more women. So I think it would be good to understand just what the challenges are, from your perspective, in supporting people who are starting to put their first foot on the employment rung. Mr Dale : I could talk for quite a long time on this topic, but fundamentally it's the tyranny of distance. We get funding to deliver mentoring. When we consider the metro areas, it's quite straightforward in the sense that we can go to the employee, we can travel there and we can relay the expectations to the employer as well as to the apprentice, the trainee or the training organisation. In northern Australia, the tyranny of distance means the challenge that we are faced with is actually getting our staff to the place, to the point of contact, where the employee, the trainee or the apprentice is situated. As you know, when you are young and starting a new job, things happen in your life. The challenge for us at the moment is actually getting that service, that mentoring component, in real time and not finding out that something's gone bad when it's too late. For us, with the contact regime, when employees are reaching us, in metro areas it's quite straightforward to get our staff out to them. In regional areas like Broome or Karratha, it can be quite difficult because the funding which we get to deliver the services in the metro area is almost identical to the funding we get in regional areas, as you know. That will put a significant strain on us recruiting the right individual with the right skills to actually support the apprentices and trainees and the employee at the same time. What we'd like to see is, like I've mentioned, more skills so we can actually get into these communities and work with the employers in their towns to actually deliver the services that somebody would receive in the metro area and it's appropriately copied to places in northern Australia so they're not disadvantaged and so the young person who starts off as a boilermaker or a mechanic or in a logistical employment with a cert IV or cert III in driver ops is actually not disadvantaged in any way and treated in the same way as if they're doing an apprenticeship in CBD Canberra or Sydney. I would say that would be our main concern. Ms PRICE: I realise we do need to hear from Ms Foley. So it really is about more funding to make sure that we can get more of your people to support the young people, and those who are not so young, who are doing an apprenticeship. That's it in a nutshell? Mr Dale : That's it in a nutshell. I'll make just make one final comment. We saw in the budget on Tuesday that the employee incentives have been reduced from $5,000 to $4,000. That kicks in on 1 January. That will be detrimental to employees across northern Australia because any organisation with 200-plus FTE cannot get that incentive. A GTO, a group training organisation, can do it, but group training organisations were never actually developed for large organisations. They were developed for the SMEs. So it is funding, yes. CHAIR: I apologise, Ms Foley. I invite you to make a short statement. Ms Foley : Thank you and good morning to the senators and members of parliament. Similar to MEGT, I'm here today primarily to talk around workforce mobility and skills as they relate to engineering and in particular northern Australia. As Australia's peak body for engineering, Engineers Australia is the voice and champion of over 140,000 members. For more than a century we have sought to advance the science and practice of engineering for the benefit of the community and to work with governments to drive productivity, resilience and prosperity. As our January submission noted, northern Australia's importance, value and opportunity should not and cannot be underestimated. As the committee is very aware, many of Australia's economic, environmental and social opportunities reside in northern Australia. However, we are also very well aware that there are critical challenges with those opportunities. Northern Australia generates between 8.5 per cent and 11.5 per cent of the nation's total economic output. The region extracts, grows or manufactures 70 per cent of Australia's exported goods. It encompasses 10,000 kilometres of coastline and covers three million square kilometres, or 53 per cent, of Australia's landmass. It is home to just 5.2 per cent of the total population, with almost a fifth of that population being First Nations. Engineers are vital to the economic output. Engineering represents the largest component of the STEM workforce. Of Australia's $25 billion business spend on R&D, 45 per cent is related to engineering. Fifty per cent of engineers work in just four sectors, and those four sectors represent 45 per cent of the nation's $1.7 trillion value-add. In northern Australia, we estimate that there are around 20,000 engineers working across a range of different industries. Engineers will be critical to delivering and supporting the Australian government's priorities for northern Australia. That includes if we are looking at nation building, from an infrastructure plan perspective, whether that be road or rail projects, if we're looking at complex water systems or even if we're looking at remote power microgrids. If we then look at emerging industries, like critical minerals, we have to look at the full life cycle, from conception and planning through to decommissioning. That includes design, material recovery and environmental rehabilitation. Then engineers become really important from a sovereign capability perspective in defence, aviation, agriculture and ports. We are increasingly working with First Nations leaders and communities and drawing upon traditional knowledge systems as well. We really have three suggestions in relation to what we can offer. They relate to working with you to develop the nation's engineering capability. We see that there is a need for an additional 60,000 engineering graduates over the next 10 years, and that is actually really important from a pipeline perspective. We also see that it's critical that engineering expertise is available to and is integrated within key critical decisions at all points of the decision-making process. That's right upfront, from a planning perspective, all the way through, again, to operation. We see that one of the ways that that can be achieved is through appointment of specific roles at both the state and the national level—for example, appointment of chief engineers at both the state and the national level. The third point, and this is where we are really keen to work with you, is around the mobility of engineers across Australia. That feeds into ensuring that there's a national approach to registration for engineers across the country to support mobility and to ensure that the engineering expertise that we have can be deployed where and when needed. I again thank you for your time this morning and look forward to questions. CHAIR: Deputy chair. Ms PRICE: Would you like to go back to Mr Dale? CHAIR: You can go back to either. Ms PRICE: Others might have questions for Mr Dale, so we'll go back to Mr Dale for questions and then we'll refer to Ms Foley. CHAIR: Luke, do you have questions? Mr GOSLING: Yes, thank you. I want to go to Ms Foley, actually. I'm a big supporter of the idea of chief engineers. The fact that we have chief medical officers who are so prominent has been important, particularly in recent times. There's a case of people seeing what they can be, but it's not just a status thing. It's coordinating across sectors. It's lifting the priority. What's an example of that work that you mentioned that's happening with the First Nations communities and First Nations people to get an understanding of how you can help with those pathways? For example, the Australian Indigenous Doctors' Association would be able to tell you exactly how many First Nations doctors there are and how many are in the pipeline. We've certainly been pushing that. I'm wondering where we're at as far as getting First Nations people from northern Australia, in particular, through the pathway. Ms Foley : Based on the 2021 census data, there are around 1,200 Indigenous engineers. That's from that census data perspective. The assumption is that a majority of those work from a northern Australia perspective. Yes, we know they are across Australia, but, as I said in my opening statement, a greater percentage are in northern Australia—so that would feed in as well. We have piloted a number of different opportunities, but, from an Engineers Australia perspective, a professional association perspective, we absolutely recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the oldest continuous cultures on earth and, very importantly, as our first engineers. In February this year, informed by our members, we launched our Innovate Reconciliation Action Plan. Within that there are specific actions for our divisions. We've got divisions around Australia. I know you're familiar with our northern division. We have divisions in Queensland and also Western Australia. A couple of those action points in that RAP relate specifically to engagement with local communities in terms of design principles and how we can strengthen that relationship. We've tried a number of different activities at different times, from a division perspective, with local communities. Some of them have worked and some of them haven't worked. For me, that RAP enables us to have a more dedicated, structured approach to ensure the pipeline is there. We work closely with the Australian Council of Engineering Deans as well. A number of years ago there was a piece of work that the Australian Council of Engineering Deans did in terms of how we can better support First Nations and the pathways into universities, particularly for engineering. Mr GOSLING: You can see, with how much is going on across northern Australia, that if there's an engineer from Tennant Creek they'll be able to live in Tennant Creek and work with, bring on and mentor other young people coming through the pipeline. Perhaps you can take that question on notice for the northern division, to give us a bit of an idea of where those First Nations engineers are around northern Australia. That'd be great. Ms Foley : I'm happy to take that on notice. Mr GOSLING: Thank you. CHAIR: Senator McDonald. Senator McDONALD: Following on neatly from Mr Gosling's questions, where in northern Australia could young people train as an engineer? Ms Foley : The universities which offer engineering in northern Australia are: Charles Darwin University, from the Darwin perspective; James Cook University, with campuses in Cairns as well as in Townsville; and Central Queensland University. They are the three universities which offer engineering programs and can support from a northern Australia perspective. Senator McDONALD: There's nothing in Western Australia? Ms Foley : In Western Australia there is the University of Western Australia, but there are no campuses— Senator McDONALD: In the north? Ms Foley : in the north which offer engineering programs. Senator McDONALD: Which engineering streams are offered in those places? Ms Foley : Now you're asking me a hard question! Across JCU, CDU and CQU, we're the accrediting body for all the engineering programs—so we accredit the engineering programs. I will have to go back to our program listing, but across all those universities the main engineering disciplines are covered—civil, mechanical and electrical. There would be niche offerings which come and go at different times as well, but each of those universities offer the broad spectrum of engineering. Senator McDONALD: I'm the shadow minister for resources as well. I am surprised we have so few mining engineering offerings. Civil and construction do this little add-on piece to become qualified to do mining, yet an underground mine in particular is complex—structural, ventilation. For so many reasons, it's a different skill set. I'm single-handedly trying to run a campaign to see more engineering programs in the north, because I think where we started and where you started, Mr Dale, was that training young people to have skills, qualifications and opportunity in the north is different. I did School of the Air and correspondence. To uproot and travel 2,000 kilometres away, away from your family and, though I'm not Indigenous, away from your country, is a terrible thing to do to children. So, as to how we train people in the north, there's got to be a real focus on that localised training. So I'm just wondering what support looks like. You touched on the financial part—the $4,000 training part. But what does support look like? I did a great trucking inquiry with Senator Sterle, where we were talking about trucking apprenticeships for young people so that they could train on the job in the place where they live and are from. But we were never able to really get traction on some of those localised training pieces. Could you speak to that. Mr Dale : Yes. I can make a real-life comment at the moment. MEGT runs an Indigenous work-skills traineeship program in Townsville, and we struggle to find a registered training organisation to deliver a cert I in construction. More often than not, we have to find a registered training organisation outside of that area to come in to train. They do a fantastic job, but they're not from that area; they're from outside. The program is specifically for Indigenous kids. We want to give them a chance. There's an 18-week reskill certificate I traineeship. After that, once we've filled that, we pathway them into an organisation in Townsville—and this is Townsville. When we look in other areas in northern Australia, we do find it difficult to find—as to what you were just speaking to, Senator—a local organisation to deliver that training. TAFE do a good job et cetera, but, more often than not, there's a big waitlist to get that trainer to deliver it in that community. So it's not just training the young people to get into these emerging industries but also having the training infrastructure to deliver it there. Otherwise, as you can see from the infrastructure across those regional and remote communities, it's difficult for the young people to get to these training places and, as you just said, to get back, and it's onerous on them. As I was saying before, it is very different to metro areas around the country, and, unfortunately, the programs, rightly or wrongly, think, 'If you can deliver it in Canberra; you can deliver it in Broome,' but, unfortunately, you can't. Senator McDONALD: It doesn't quite work like that, does it? Mr Dale : No. Senator McDONALD: I'm thinking about this: in Mount Isa, there's a great business that does truck-driver training, for people to go into the mines or ag businesses. But, of course, you've got to have a job to have somebody to pay for you to do that. Have you seen an impact from the government's announcement to increase junior wages to the equivalent of adult wages? Certainly, when I employed people, unskilled people were worth less to me—it didn't matter how old they were—and that was a pathway for me to bring unskilled people into the business at a lower rate whilst they became useful. Mr Dale : I might take that bit on notice then, because we're looking at the impacts of the budget at the moment, but, off the top of my head, the answer would be no, unfortunately. But I'll take that on notice and I'll come back— Senator McDONALD: That was announced before the budget. I think it would be interesting to see what that has done to employment, because I think one of the bits of feedback we've had in previous committees has been from, particularly, Indigenous communities, but all young people: if you train people without a job at the end then they get jaded with training. So this idea of actually having a job to go to, and the right training, is really important. Mr Dale : Yes. We have—not in northern Australia, but in Melbourne—high-level apprenticeships. It's a two-year degree in mechanical engineering and after that a three-year traineeship. They earn while they're learning. It's quite embryonic in Australia at the moment, but something like that across northern Australia could actually make a big difference I think. Senator McDONALD: Ms Foley? Ms Foley : If I could add to that as well, the degree apprenticeship model is an innovative model that, from a university program structure perspective, has great potential so that you do have that 'earn while you learn' concept not just from a trades perspective but for the professions as well. Then you actually have the different pathways in to the various universities as well. Senator McDONALD: Perhaps you could take this question on notice so that I don't take up all of the time. I notice that a number of big businesses are leaving regional and rural places in northern Australia—banks, for example. These were places that previously were a great place for a young person to get trained locally. So I'm wondering if there is a role that we should be considering for more online training for jobs that are suitable for that. Obviously it's more difficult to learn some skills online. Finally, could you also come back on notice with your thoughts on AI and the use of AI for training and development for northern Australia. CHAIR: Senator Whiteaker. Senator WHITEAKER: Perhaps this is a question that both witnesses could contribute to. Thanks for being with us today. I found both of your submissions really interesting. So thank you for those. In terms of expanding the pool of the workforce that we might need, definitely one thing you could possibly both talk about is women and how we can encourage more women to consider taking up an apprenticeship or traineeship in some of these typically male dominated industries. I'm interested in your views about what specifically we can do to facilitate that and encourage women to take up these kinds of traineeships. Is there anything that is working already that we should do more of? Is there something that perhaps hasn't been tried that you think is worth trying? Ms Foley : Thank you for the question. It is absolutely a challenge in that we know that there's going to be a 20 per cent increase in the need for engineers. When we're looking at pipelines, we're not talking about something that can be turned on and off within a couple of years. We're talking about a 10- to 15-year pipeline regardless of whether you're talking about trades or professions. So we need to grow that entire talent pool. But, importantly, we have to grow underrepresented areas of that talent pool as well. In engineering, for example, we're still stubbornly at only about 16 per cent within the profession. From a university perspective, in some disciplines we can get between 20 and 30 per cent, but, within the profession itself, we're still only sitting at around 16 per cent. It is unusual for me to be sitting next to someone who is actually in a worse position in terms of that. But, to answer your question, there is a lot of activity, but it has been stubborn. That pivot point is not there. One of the things that we know that we have to do is actually raise awareness, even down to primary school and early childhood, of the opportunities. I'm not talking opportunities just for engineering. If we look at all the emerging industries around northern Australia, we need a whole-team approach of people with varying skill levels, varying degrees and varying occupations as well. Part of it is actually defining it. On that comment before around 'chief engineer', you have to be able to see something and actually be able to articulate what engineering is and raise awareness of the opportunities and the different ways that people of all genders and the entire population can actually see themselves contributing to engineering outcomes. Mr Dale : Maybe I am in a worse situation, but that's okay. What can we do for northern Australia? It's a big issue that needs tackling. We were chatting earlier about how education in schools is paramount. I mentioned year 8 and year 9; Ms Foley mentioned earlier years than that. It's about education but also what we've seen when supporting women into male dominated trades. If we look at the construction trade, we still have companies out there who don't have facilities for women entering the trade. They can be quite enthusiastic on day one, but that enthusiasm wanes and dissipates over two to three months et cetera. What we've been trying to do is work with employers to take on two females at a time so they can work in tandem. It can be quite daunting if we're placing a young girl in a male dominated industry with 14 or 15 lads. The lads are not behaving any differently; it's just what they've been doing for years. But, obviously, it's not appropriate for a young girl who's been told, 'Come in and be a boilermaker.' They can leave that industry. So I think we can do a lot in supporting employees as well as the education system. When the career advisers at school give advice, they give advice on what they know. They've been doing the job for 15 or 20 years. They actually haven't seen outside of their front door. The construction industry is a lot different to what it was 20 years ago, and to be a labourer is a lot different to being a labourer 20 years ago. That education needs to be part of the growth in the schools. We've run a few programs in transport. Senator McDonald, you were talking about drivers, but we've been using AI for that and we've gained some fantastic results with women being placed into these male dominated industries—not because of the course per se. Are we utilising AI and VR to make it engaging for them as well? We've had the employer from day one in designing these courses, and so they go back as part of the onboarding as well. It is a very small percentage at the moment, but I am optimistic it will be advanced even more going forward. But it needs to start at the schools and the employees need support as well. CHAIR: Thank you. Ms PRICE: It's always disappointing when we talk about the lack of tertiary institutions in the north-west. Given I represent the whole of the north-west, it's always very disappointing, but I have some bright news for you—some good news. This is really more to get this on your radar, Ms Foley. We have what's called the Pilbara Kimberley University Centres. University centres are dotted all around Australia, and I happen to be on the board of the Pilbara Kimberley University Centres. In fact I'm a founding member of that organisation, and we were supported by the federal government. Going back, I think, to the Morrison days, we received a $3 million grant. Effectively, with the university centre system, a number of universities provide content out of that institution. We've really tried to be as innovative as possible. Currently there's an associate engineering course, which is run by Curtin, in a partnership with FMG, to upskill Indigenous electricians. This was about a year or two ago. I honestly can't tell you where that went, but it was going to require a lot of money because we had to get these young and older electricians from around Western Australia to one point. But I just wanted to give everyone hope that people are thinking about this, especially in places like the Pilbara, where we have a group of people who are ready, they have great jobs and they can stay at home—one of the things that I focus on is building our workforce at home, so this is a really great opportunity. I grew up in Kalgoorlie, so I'm very familiar with the School of Mines, and one of the things that I've talked a lot about is creating a school of mines in the Pilbara. What I want to be able to do is to have graduates from all around the country who end up in Karratha or Port Hedland to do their work experience. That's the future for us, and we're working very closely with Curtin University to create the Pilbara school of mines. We're not there yet, but there's a lot of excitement, we've got all of the players on our doorstep and it should be a place where we train engineers. I just want to give you that hope. Ms Foley : That is very good to hear. I would say that COVID had many challenges. One of the really good things that came out of COVID, though, was the acceptance and the rapid transition to blended learning and online learning. CQU have for a long time been able to deliver programs remotely—distance education, as it used to be called. So I think there are huge opportunities now—that location is nowhere near as important as it used to be. Ms PRICE: Yes. So you won't be surprised that CQU is one of our key partners. Our system is really a hybrid—some online, some in person—and it's really helping a lot of young people in Western Australia to actually get their education but stay at home, rather than having to travel to Perth, with the difficulties of that. Mr Dale, getting back to you: one of the recommendations you made was to simplify the apprenticeship system. Have you got any ideas about what we should do? Mr Dale : Uh— Ms PRICE: It's a big question! Mr Dale : Can I take it on notice and get back to you? Ms PRICE: You can take it on notice. Mr Dale : The only reason I say that is that we've got ideas for remote, regional and metro. If I articulated an idea now, we wouldn't want it to be the same across all the regions in Australia. Ms PRICE: Sure. Mr Dale : We think that to educate in local SMEs in northern Australia or remotely, even in Broome, it would be very different to what we need in order to educate a multinational in Sydney et cetera. It's complex in terms of the states—how to get the funding et cetera. But I'll look to come back to you, specific to all the regions in northern Australia— Ms PRICE: Okay. That would be really helpful. Thanks very much. Mr GOSLING: Perhaps I could follow up on that one. The obvious question is: how do we simplify it? And for the university sector, a lot of people are talking about the rise of microcredentialling as a way through some of the workforce challenges and getting people into the workforce more quickly. I'd be interested in any of that sort of thinking that means people can afford the cost of living because they're working while they're studying and are on apprenticeship wages for less time. I'd appreciate anything you can come up with there. Do either of you know of any situations outside of the local McDonald's franchise, for example, where the idea that an 18-year-old gets paid an adult wage rather than a child's wage is rearing its head? I wasn't sure—it was put on notice—but are there any places of work in emerging industries where either of you would foresee that paying an 18-year-old an adult wage would be a problem? Mr Dale : I'd love to come back to you on that. As you know, the priority list underpins this. You can't do a traineeship at McDonald's anymore, because it came off the priority list last year, unfortunately. So they're going through their own strategy. They still have kids going there, but it's not a traineeship anymore. There are some examples where a young person starting a traineeship or apprenticeship could get paid more. But we're seeing, because the courses in some industries are so old, that the modern-day business environment needs something different. Anecdotally, we're getting from employers, 'We just want young people with a good work ethos: they want to turn up.' They just want them to turn up, because they will teach them the skills. They don't want them to go through a four-year apprenticeship just because they're, anecdotally, a mechanic who did an apprenticeship in the eighties or nineties—'I did it that way; you should do it that way.' The world has changed, especially with AI and the impact and disruption of artificial intelligence. I'll come back to you with some specific examples, if that's okay. Senator McDONALD: Is there a list of other organisations where training has come off the priority list or, conversely, gone on the priority list? Mr Dale : It's not a list of organisations; it's just a list of qualifications. Senator McDONALD: Sorry—yes. I'm not across that. So it would be great if you'd perhaps provide that, perhaps with some comments around it. McDonald's is a good example, because it is such a big employer of young people in regional places, and perhaps there are other examples. Mr Dale : Yes. Senator McDONALD: Thank you. CHAIR: I don't think there are any further questions, but I want to thank you, Mr Dale and Ms Foley. There are a number of questions on notice around First Nations communities. I'm not sure whether Mr Gosling wanted that information from both of you, but I've listed five questions on notice and the committee will provide those to you. I thank you both for your evidence today. If we could receive any responses to the questions on notice within two weeks of you receiving a copy of the Hansard transcript, that would be really good. Thank you for your appearance today..