Wednesday, 4 March 2020

Ministers statements: Women in Transport

Ms ALLAN (Bendigo East—Leader of the House, Minister for Transport Infrastructure) (11:11): Thursday, 20 February, was Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day. This is a great program that gives young women an opportunity to discover engineering careers while emphasising the benefits of science, technology, engineering and maths subjects.

We know that women are under-represented in engineering and infrastructure, and a day like this is one of the many ways we are helping more Victorian women to become engineers. Of course with our massive transport infrastructure pipeline of projects that support 15 000 construction jobs, there are plenty of opportunities for more women to get more opportunities to succeed in the construction industry.

That is why the Andrews Labor government has also developed its own Women in Transport initiative that helps increase the workforce participation of women in the transport industry but also, importantly, helps support pathways and empower them to rise to senior positions in this sector. Also, of course, with all of our Big Build projects and all of our major projects across government, we require all of those projects to meet the Major Project Skills Guarantee, which sees at least 10 per cent of the workforce being made up of engineering cadets and trainees and apprentices. Again, there are 119 major road and rail projects that all require a diverse workforce—more opportunities more often for women in these areas.

Another great example of a fantastic partnership we have got going is between the Richmond AFLW team and our level crossing removal program.

Members interjecting.

Ms ALLAN: It is good to see some bipartisan support at least on one issue today. We currently have three members of the Richmond AFLW squad working on our level crossing programs, helping get rid of those dangerous, congested level crossings right across the city. Some may be content to sit back and see numbers of women decline; we are going to give them every opportunity to succeed.