A need to focus on developing commercial fishing industry personnel with the necessary skills to confidently, articulately and professionally represent the industry at a sectoral and broader level has been identified as one of the major issues facing the Australian fishing industry in a number of reports and strategic plans released in recent years, including:
1. The Miriam O’Brien report (1997) commissioned by FRDC
2. The Pivotal report (1998) commissioned by the South Australian Minister for Primary Industries
3. The 5-year Research and Development Strategy (1999) prepared by the FRAB
The latter two reports provide introductory strategic plans for the industry in terms of research and management respectively. Both suggest that development of the people resource will be a critical limiting factor in future operations of the industry at all levels.
The Miriam O'Brien report identifies the limited range of personal development options open to members of the seafood industry at present. Seafood Directions ’99 identified “strategies to develop people in leadership roles including public speaking and negotiation skills” as a critical action task for ASIC to undertake. There is clearly a need for an industry specific advanced leadership program that prepares a pool of next-generation leaders and is part of an overall national strategy for developing an effective people resource for the seafood industry.
Seafood Training Australia is currently developing competencies for leadership and people development components associated with the seafood industry. There is a need to develop training programs to co-ordinate with that process and deliver methods that will enable industry members to gain the competencies identified by STA. The proposed program would pilot these competencies and develop an aligned training model for national use. It needs to be horizontally integrated to the existing MAC course and linked to the Australian Rural Leadership Program but structured so as to be personal development focussed and relevant to the seafood industry.
