In Training

The WA Training Awards recognise and reward the outstanding achievements of apprentices, trainees and vocational students and the contribution to training made by trainers, training organisations and employers.

In their fifteenth year, the Awards continue to celebrate our training elite and open doors and create bright futures for the State’s top achievers. In 2009 there were twelve categories in the WA Training Awards for students, trainers and organisations.

A gala presentation dinner was held on 4 September 2009 in which the winners of the WA Training Awards 2009 were announced. The Australian Training Awards presentation dinner was held in Canberra on 19 November 2009.

This year Apprenticeships Australia had four employees make it to the final selection with winners in two of the three categories we entered. All of these apprentices and trainees are hosted with Woodside Energy Ltd and Adam and Salathiel will now go onto the finals to be held in Canberra.

These four apprentices were:

Wade Reynolds, Apprentice of the Year Finalist
Glen White, Trainee of the Year Finalist
Adam Selby, Trainee of the Year Winner
Salathiel McKay, WA Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Student of the Year Winner

Adam started his first full-time career as an apprentice refrigeration and air conditioning mechanic when he left school in 1999. After working in the Middle East and West Africa to commission air conditioning systems on offshore oil and gas platforms, he applied to become a trainee process plant operator through Woodside’s Offshore Traineeship Program. Adam started training at the prestigious Australian Centre for Energy and Process Training (ACEPT) at Challenger TAFE, after completing a rigorous three month selection and recruitment process. Adam was named Challenger TAFE’s 2008 Student of the Year and Trainee of the Year. As WA Trainee of the Year, Adam was awarded a $7000 study grant from GESB. Adam is planning to enrol in a Certificate IV in Process Plant Operations to help him progress further in his career and advance to a supervisory role.

With a strong interest in electricity and the electro technology industry, Salathiel applied for an instrument electrical apprenticeship with Woodside Energy Limited in 2004 and started as a first year apprentice in 2005. Based at the Karratha Onshore Gas Plant for the full term of his four-year apprenticeship, he graduated with a Certificate III in Electrical Engineering and a Certificate IV in Electrical Instrumentation from Pilbara TAFE.

Apprenticeship Australia is also sponsoring the WA Vet in Schools Award. The WA VET in Schools Award winner will win $8,000 cash from Apprenticeships Australia and the chance to represent the State at the
Australian Training Awards.

The Industrial Training Institute (iTi) was one of the organisers for the Electronic Control heat of the World Skills Competition 2009.

The WA World Skills open competitions are run every two years and available to anyone who lives, studies or works in WA as long as they meet the age criteria (for the 2009 state competition cycle – you must be born on or after 1/1/1986). After all competitions have been completed in WA this year the make up of Team WA will be determined and these competitors will be invited to participated in the Australian National Competition to be held in Brisbane in May 2010.

World Skills Australia will then assess performances at the National competition being held in London in 2011. To be eligible to compete in London competitors must be born on or after 1/1/1989.

This year the Electrical Control heat of the World Skills was run live at the Mining Australia Expo. The Industrial Training Institute ran the competition in conjunction with ICM Electrical, Southern Cross Electrical and World Skills. The competition was supported by Apprenticeships Australia, who donated $10 000 to World Skills. The prizes for the competition were donated by Alistair Rozario of CMPS, who has supported Apprenticeships Australia apprentices and the World Skills competition for over three years. The two judicators were from the WA Electrical Licensing Board and Western Power.

The Industrial Training Institute would like to extend their gratitude to the World Skills organiser, Frank Everingham, Mike Land and Julian Taylor from ICM Electrical and Mel Oliveri from Southern Cross Electrical.

The winners of the Electronic Control were:

1st place:    Evan Lamb - Hanseatic Marine

2nd place:   Ante Ljuicic - Circuit Force WA Pty Ltd

3rd place:    Tim Hall – Alcoa

The first prize was a large electrical tool kit, second prize was a Hitachi battery drill and third prize was a funky tool bag. Ante Ljuicic also won the “Judges’ Prize” - a $1000 gift voucher from the Industrial Training Institute for a Pre-Capstone course.

The Rio Tinto FIFO Graduation and Awards Night was held on 23 July 2009 at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry WA.

Representatives from Rio Tinto, Apprenticeships Australia and CCI joined apprentices, trainees and their family and friends to celebrate the achievements of those who graduated from their training over the past year. This night also recognised two outstanding achievers with the presentation of Safety and Apprentice of the Year Awards.

The Occupational Health and Safety Award was presented to Dylan McKenzie who had demonstrated a commitment to safety over the preceding year. Dylan embraced the Rio Tinto safety culture using the safety taught to him including Take 5, JHA’s and Bop’s.

Mick Curtis, an electrical apprentice supervisor from Rio Tinto Iron Ore, said: “Dylan is always prepared to be part of the team and participate in discussions, putting well thought out ideas forward and not afraid to voice his opinion even though all may not agree.”

The Apprentice of the Year award went to Ross Spreadborough who had performed high quality work and showed dedication to his training throughout his apprenticeship in 2008.

“Ross’s attitude to safety and work ethic are excellent and this is evidenced by the quality of work he submitted and the number of tasks completed. Feedback from any person that he came into contact with involving his apprenticeship was always of a high calibre,” said Craig Harris, Rio Tinto Iron Ore MEM Superintendent West Angelas.

Apprentices and trainees who were just starting their training in 2009 were also introduced on the night. The evening was celebrated with an awards ceremony and presentations followed by food and drinks while a jazz duo played. The evening was a great success.

The Australian Government has committed to halving the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous employment outcomes within a decade. As part of that commitment the Government has reformed and improved employment services for Indigenous Australians.

Apprenticeships Australia has won a tender for the Indigenous Employment Panel. The Panel is for the provision of services that relate to equipping employers with the skills, knowledge and expertise necessary to provide sustainable employment opportunities for Indigenous Australians, and preparing them to take up employment opportunities, stay in jobs and enhance their future employment prospects.

Apprenticeship Australia will provide a range of Indigenous employment services in four areas:

• building the aspirations for Indigenous Australians;
• developing or providing training for Indigenous Australians;
• employer support services to recruit and retrain more Indigenous Australians;
• developing Indigenous workforces in communities and industries.

Ben-Lee D’limi, a second year apprentice, Heavy Plant Mechanic hosted at Komatsu is an enthusiastic Formula Ford Racer.

This is his first year racing Formula Ford which is only possible because he had a sponsor. He completed four race meetings at Barbagallo Raceway. Ben-Lee used to race Go-karts and this is usually how successful drivers like Michael Schumacher commence their career in racing.

In July, Ben-Lee raced for the first time in the eastern states. He finished fifth in the first race of the NSW Formula Ford Championship at Eastern Creek. D’limi also competed in race two and went on to finish third.

The results of the races proved that Ben could do better if he was able to get more sponsorship to improve his car performance and have an excellent mechanic. During this race he had V8 Supercar driver Garth Tander and a mechanic of his team as his pit crew.

Ben is currently seeking additional sponsorships to help him compete in the Rising Star Program and Formula BMW Pacific 2010. His racing career goal is to race in Formula 1 and both these programs will lead the pathway to Formula 1.

Ben said that we are not to worry; he is just as passionate about his apprenticeship as much as he is about his racing which is only in its early stages.

Apprenticeships Australia’s previously delivered BHP Billiton Pingku program aimed to present employment pathway options within the building and construction industry for young Indigenous people in the Pilbara region. Nicole Dickerson participated in the Pingku Traineeship on the RGP4 Project at Mt Whaleback Hub Newman in 2008.

In a recent interview, Nicole said: ”Being a FIFO trainee and working away from home for the first time, I was overwhelmed with mixed emotions, however when I met the rest of the trainees everything changed. We started off as a group of strangers from different parts of the state coming together through Pingku and ending up being a family of our own.”

The supervisors throughout the Pingku Program were Bryan Nokes and Mike Little. Nicole remarked that: “Bryan Nokes was remarkable as he was always honest, compassionate and understood the importance of family issues relating to Indigenous people, while Mike Little proved to be really helpful in keeping our group together through social gatherings and outings after work hours. His mentoring helped in more ways than I think he actually knew.”

Macmahon Contractors was the host company which Nicole was placed at. “They played a huge part in the Pingku Program and provided assistance in on-the-job training for the trainees,” Nicole said. Nicole was able to complete a Certificate II in Business Administration.

She is currently employed in administration by the Macmahon Leighton Joint Venture RGP5 Rail Project in Port Hedland. The program delivered high calibre trainees and in most cases these trainees continued into full employment with their host company once they had graduated.

In January 2009, Apprenticeships Australia was approached by BHP Billiton Petroleum to employ and train three Maritime Trainees and they were to start as soon as possible. The appointed Apprenticeships Australia adviser was Ian Eardley and he recently gave feedback on the Maritime program’s progress and success this past year.

The traineeships that BHP Billiton Petroleum offered were Engineer Cadet, Deck Cadet and Integrated Rating. Ian said that after agreements had been reached the hard work started. The Engineer Cadet and Deck Cadet courses for 2009 had already commenced and as these courses only run once per year Apprenticeships Australia were limited in their choice of applicants. Fortunately, Ian said, there were several good applicants on the Maritime course already that they could choose from.

The Integrated Rating traineeship was a little bit easier as they were able to advertise the position and get a bigger pool of applicants to choose from. By April 2009 we had aptitude tested, interviewed and employed the three trainees, two of whom were already at TAFE and completing their course and one who was enrolled to start his course in middle of April 2009.

Apart from the unusual recruitment path that Apprenticeships Australia had to take, they also had to find companies that own ships that were willing to take on the trainees and provide them with training for their offshore components. After approaching several companies, they reached an agreement with a company called Go Offshore, based in South Perth, who have been very helpful in getting the trainees the experience they need to complete their traineeships.

Ian mentioned that after a lot of hard work they ended up with all of the trainees completing their land based TAFE components at the end of July 2009 and beginning their sea time by the middle of August 2009.

The Engineering Cadet has completed an eight week initial placement at sea based out of Dampier. He has returned for a three week break and sailed again, this time from Gladstone in Queensland aboard a bulk carrier sailing to Japan. He will be gone for three months.

The Deck Cadet and the Integrated Rating trainee did an eight week placement with a supply ship servicing the oil rigs and the Timor Sea; they sail out of Darwin and Singapore.

The Deck Cadet has just returned to sea for another four week placement and the Integrated Rating trainee is waiting for a berth to become available so that he can return for his second secondment offshore.

The program was very successful and BHP Billiton Petroleum has approached Apprenticeships Australia to recruit another Engineering Cadet and Integrated Rating trainee to commence employment with Apprenticeships Australia in February 2010.

If anyone is interested in learning about this exciting opportunity please contact Ian Eardley on 0409 688 657 or email ian.eardley@cciwa.com.

Nelson Webster, a fourth year Inlec apprentice with Woodside, has won the Pilbara TAFE Apprentice of the Year 2009. Dave Hilliard, the apprentice adviser for Woodside onshore, said that Nelson was an outstanding apprentice who had won Woodside Apprentice of the Year in every year of his apprenticeship. Dave presented him with a certificate and a $100 gift voucher at their toolbox meeting.

The Apprenticeships Australia Helpdesk has recently been launched to assist you with any queries that you may have regarding your pay or employment conditions. The Helpdesk operates between the hours of 7.30am to 5.30pm weekdays (excluding public holidays) and can be contacted by telephoning 1300 APPS AU (1300 2777 28) or emailing appshelpdesk@cciwa.com.

Apprenticeships Australia

Congratulations to Cleighton Martin, he is the proud father of a beautiful baby boy named Jamie who was born on 7 August 2009.

Congratulations to Kristin Lim, she is the proud mother of a beautiful baby girl named Kayla, who was born on 15 September 2009. She weighed 2.45kg.

2009 has been another busy year for Apprenticeships Australia; whilst the global financial crisis has set challenging times for everyone, we have managed to maintain the existing apprentice and traineeship numbers, through your support and foresight into our future skill needs. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their commitment and dedication to the important work of training apprentices and trainees.

We have been working hard this year on improving our systems to enable an efficient ‘back of office’ service to our hosts. The majority of this work will be completed by February 2010; from there, our next planned project will be the development of an integrated training management system. This system will have the ability to track by stage the off the job training component and will ensure compliance training is undertaken and recorded appropriately. The design and implementation process will take approximately 12 months, we intend for this system to be interactive with our host personnel, by way of internet; the system will enable hosts to view training progress throughout the term of the apprenticeship or traineeship.

Our apprentices and trainees have received recognition for their outstanding performance in their respective fields. We along with our hosts have been recognised for these achievements in the State Training Excellence Awards, National Training Excellence Awards and the 2009 Worldskills Competition.

Our work in the Northern Territory has been exciting and we are set to commence an Indigenous Training Program in January 2010 in partnership with the Northern Land Council. The Energy Apprenticeships Group (EAG) continues to thrive in serving the oil and gas industry and continues to increase the number of apprentices and trainees.

Safety is and will always be our top priority in all of our operations; we are now AS 4801 compliant with Apprenticeships Australia and will continue with this high level of expertise. Rob Paley and the Apprenticeships Australia team have worked hard to achieve this level; Rob is always available to our Hosts to answer questions and assist in any way he can.

As Christmas approaches I would like to wish all apprentices and trainees, their families and host companies a safe and merry Christmas from everybody at Apprenticeships Australia. The team and I look forward to continuing working closely with you to provide quality apprenticeship and traineeship services in 2010.