4 April 2009, Samoa with Parliamentary Secretary for International Development Assistance, Bob McMullan
Joint Press Conference, Samoa
Subjects: PACER Plus, aid, labour mobility and skills training
SIMON CREAN: We’re developing skills in the region to bring people together and to develop teams. This [Australia Pacific Technical College] is a vital part of the aid program that Bob is responsible for and this is our investment in the future of nations. Bob will talk about the school and the grant that he has announced today.
The second thing that we have been doing here is talking with the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Finance about PACER Plus. PACER Plus is a new basis for enhancing regional economic cooperation. It was very pleasing to hear a very strong endorsement by the Prime Minister today and support for advancing the PACER Plus framework. Part of the exercise over our four days of travel through the Pacific is to work out how we can better put substance into PACER Plus and how we can build upon the aid for trade component that is so vital to trade liberalisation.
This is my first visit here. I find a lovely country where hospitality and the warmth of reception is really terrific. We look forward to continuing to work with Samoa. We want to be an effective part of Samoa’s continued economic development.
I’ll now hand over to Bob.
BOB McMULLAN: This is my third official visit here since I became Parliamentary Secretary for International Development Assistance and my fifth visit to the country. I came a couple of times previously in informal capacities. I love coming here.
Two things I will say. On PACER Plus, we want to make sure that the development assistance we provide helps the countries in the region to take advantage of the opportunities that opening up markets will create. Of course, it’s a good thing to open markets to people so that they can sell things but it’s not much use if they don’t have the resources to take advantage of it. So we are going to try and invest in that.
The other thing which is almost entirely unrelated, but really heart warming. I went out to Fa’atuatua Christian College to announce a grant to SENESE [Special Needs School] to help children with disabilities. ST$320,000.00 for a 12 month trial for inclusive education at Fa’atuatua Christian College, for secondary students with disabilities. The grant is to provide these children with the same opportunity to go to school as all the other children. They will attend a mainstream school and have the same sort of education as everybody else.
One of our most important initiatives in the aid program, not just in Samoa but across the Pacific and throughout Asia, is to bring people with disabilities into the center of the development discussion. They are the most underprivileged people and their rights are not respected and they don’t get fair opportunities. So we are going to make that a big focus of our aid program.
One of the inspirations is when I went to the Robert Louis Stevenson School previously and saw where SENESE operates and what they were doing for kids with disabilities at that school. I won’t pretend it was the only inspiration; I’ve seen other places in other countries. But the one that I talked to other people about is SENESE. It’s a terrific school and they were bringing kids into the mainstream. We are so happy to be able to help.
In the big picture, we have the things that Simon is talking about for the long term economic success of this country. But in human terms this is a really very moving and exciting thing. I was very delighted to do it, and pleased that the Australian High Commission here through AusAID has supported this work to establish the pilot. It is part of an international trial and if it is successful after 12 months, we’ll expand it from here to elsewhere around the region.
QUESTION: Countries like Samoa are moving from a labour intensive economy to a skill intensive economy. What is Australia doing in terms of labour mobility and skills development?
CREAN: Well as you know, we have introduced a pilot program for labour mobility and seasonal work between a number of Pacific Island countries and Australia. We want to take the pilot program further into the future to develop labour mobility within the region. This will only happen if we give greater emphasis to skill development because increasingly these days, what businesses and infrastructure require is the development of the skills of an individual. What we have is the institutional structure for that here with this APTC facility. We want to develop a framework in which we can get a better understanding of the importance of labour mobility within the region. We would like to see it become an important part of the PACER Plus agreement but we need to talk it over with our other colleagues in other nations and understand their aspirations for this. Clearly we are prepared to have the mobility issue as an important part of PACER Plus.
McMULLAN: I was talking today to some young men who were doing a welding course here at APTC and I asked them what were they going to do when they had finished their course. They had some interesting ideas.
In Papua New Guinea, a large gas project is going to need lots of welders – probably thousands. These kids can get jobs there and it will be good money. After they have finished working for the gas project they will be able to be employed all around the world. It’s just an example. People think automatically about Australia and New Zealand because we are the biggest economies in the region but we are not the only place to find jobs.
CREAN: The Solomon Islands has the Gold Ridge mine. Others have infrastructure undertakings. All sorts of countries are going to spend through World Bank funds as well as bilateral aid funds on infrastructure. All these things will require a skilled workforce. Our ability to respond to this is the real challenge and opportunity out of PACER Plus.
[ENDS]
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