"If Australia is to remain an internationally competitive destination for capital for petroleum exploration and gas development, the nation's curetn skils issues need to be addressed urgently," Beckett told delegates at APPEA's 45th annual conference in Perth yesterday.

Beckett said the private sector and government had a high demand for skilled trades and professional staff.

"In the petroleum industry, the copnstruction of LNG trains both on the Burrup Peninsula of Western Austalia and in Darwin - along with the construction of the fertislier plant on the Burrup - are the base demand drivers," he said.

"Projects in the pipeline on the Burrup, in the Northern Territory, in the Browse Basin, on Barrow Island and in Bass Strait, together with the possibility of the construction of the PNG gas pipeline, are likely to mean that strong demand for skills will persist.

"Minerals processing projects, infrastructure requirements and the facilities for the Commonwealth Games will all add to the demand for skills across the nation."

At the same time, government required skilled professionals to develop new safety and environmental management regimes.

"These professionals are in short supply," he told the conference. "Leaving administration of these programs in the hands of generalists could be a recipe for administrative and policy disaster."

Ageing of the workforce was depleting industry and government skill levels, according to Beckett. Mergers and takeovers over the last decade had accentuated this trend, he said.

The Australian economy was also paying the price for longstanding social attitudes, he said.

"The fossil fuel sector in particular and the resources sector in general has been portrayed as an undesirable working environment," Beckett said.

"Science, maths and engineering have not been promoted as desirable subjects to study. The industry is seen as remote from the social amenities of the eastern seaboard where the bulk of the population is located [and] the Dawkins [education] reforms to some extent killed skilled trade education."

It was urgent that these trends be reversed as quickly as possible, Beckett said.

APPEA was promoting a higher intake of apprentices as well as overhauling scholarships schemes and promoting the industry to school-leavers and university and TAFE students.

"School courses related to maths, science and engineering need to be adequately resourced and positively promoted," he said.

The salaries and training levels of teachers needed to be increased substantially, but at the same time teacher attitudes need to change, according to Beckett.

"It's no use telling a student one day that being an engineer is good if the next day they are told that companies who employ engineers are bad," he said.

Australia also needed to move towards larger specialist educational institutions, Beckett argued.

"Every university in Australia can't have a school of earth sciences or a school of petroleum engineering," he said.

"We need a couple of high quality, large student intake bodies - probably one on each side of the country."

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