Wollongong TAFE student Jess Drewell was the centre of attention when Premier Chris Minns visited the machinery shop. Photo: Jen White.
Jess Drewell was expecting a normal day in her Wollongong TAFE fitting and machining class until the NSW Premier, five ministers and a Lord Mayor walked in.
Premier Chris Minns and his entourage visited the machinery shop on Tuesday (3 December) to announce the establishment of the TAFE-based Illawarra Heavy Industry Manufacturing Centre of Excellence.
The Federal and NSW governments are jointly investing more than $47 million to establish the centre which will pilot a new qualification model, the Associate Degree in Manufacturing and Applied Digital Technologies.
Courses on offer from 2025 will include engineering mechanical trade, laboratory skills and 3D printing. The degree apprenticeship will provide a pathway between school, vocational education and training, and higher education.
Jess is in the first year of her fitting and machining apprenticeship with Programmed Industrial Maintenance at Unanderra and has just been awarded the Wollongong TAFE Apprentice of the Year.
After photo opportunities with the Premier and ministers, Jess said she hadn’t decided on a career path as yet, but was simply enjoying learning.
“It’s always different. It’s challenging and it’s problem solving,” she said.
“The variety in heavy industries is something that not a whole lot of people get to know in depth. I just find it fascinating.”
Mr Minns said the new centre was “an investment in the future”.
“We’re very, very happy and very proud to partner with the Albanese Government to invest in the jobs of tomorrow,” he said.
“You’ve got rapidly changing manufacturing industries and firms that are on the cutting edge of providing world-class, globally competitive export quality goods to be selling to the rest of the world, but we need to make sure that we’re investing in training so that we’re staying a step ahead of everywhere else.
“We want to make sure when people buy Australian they are buying the very best in the world.
“The only way we’re going to achieve that while keeping wages high and ensuring that people that work in these industries can pay off their mortgages and raise a family, is if you put this initial investment in these manufacturing centres of excellence that are going to make a difference in the years ahead.
“Whether it’s trains, buses or ferries, we want to build things here in NSW.
“The Illawarra is a powerhouse of manufacturing, and the TAFE NSW Centre of Excellence will build on these strengths, delivering more education and training so local workers are skilled in new technologies.
“The centre will create a pipeline of skilled workers so we have the mechanical and electrical engineers, machinists and metal welders needed to secure the region’s future and support a thriving domestic advanced manufacturing industry in NSW.”
Federal Skills and Training Minister Andrew Giles said the $47 million partnership was about investing in people and ensuring they could get the skills they wanted in areas that were really needed across heavy manufacturing, such as defence and transport.
“It’s all about our future made in Australia agenda, and ensuring that people right here in the Illawarra, around NSW and ultimately, right around the country, get the skills,” he said.
“Whether it’s about upskilling or innovation through partnerships between TAFE – because this is also all about rebuilding our TAFEs – partnering with universities, partnering with industries, so the skills can evolve as technology evolves.”
NSW Skills, TAFE and Tertiary Education Minister Steve Whan said the Illawarra region was famous for its steel production, for its heavy manufacturing, and the government wanted to ensure that future continued.
“What this is going to do is take our traditional apprenticeship approaches, traditional trades, which we need many more people to engage in, and it’s going to increase the pathways into this more advanced manufacturing, things like the sort of robotics that comes into the production in manufacturing these days.
“Those are the sort of things which we can do through higher degrees and through links with universities as we move forward with these centres of excellence.
“It’s about improving pathways for young people; they might come in and do a trade to start with and then go on and do something that takes them forward into that manufacturing that makes us world competitive into the future.”
As a Port Kembla resident, Jess agrees.
“I live in Port Kembla, right next to BlueScope and the industry is what sort of started the place,” she said.
“It’s what everybody’s grandparents and parents did. And I think it’s important that we keep it going. It’s part of the Illawarra, and it’d be nice to see it continue.
“It’s important to have these kind of centres and I think everyone that I go to TAFE with would say the same thing.
“It’s important to us to have jobs nearby in something that we enjoy doing. And if we can have improvement in that, it’s even better.”
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