In a few months, the most innovative, state-of-the-art centre for sustainability and training in regional Australia will open its doors in Bathurst. The Flannery Centre, named after environmental campaigner and 2007 Australian of the Year Dr Tim Flannery, is a $7.5 million investment in regional Australia with a distinctly green agenda.

The Flannery Centre has been established by Skillset (formally Central West Group Apprentices) with significant support from the Federal Government’s[url]Educations Investments Fund.[/url]

The centre’s main function will be to educate and empower individuals, workers and business people with the necessary skills and knowledge to cope with the challenges of the twenty-first century, challenges such as climate change, peak oil, population growth, biodiversity decline, water scarcity and pollution.

The Flannery Centre will do this through very practical measures – through nationally accredited industry and individual courses in fields such as land management and the built environment, apprenticeships and traineeships, sustainability services and regular events and exhibitions.


Ben Bardon, CEO of Skillset, describes the concept as “a centre of regional response to the global issues that affect us.”

The building, designed by Crawfords Architects, is located in the Education Precinct of Panorama Avenue in Bathurst. Naturally, the building has been designed to be as self-sufficient as possible using solar passive building methods and materials.

“When our organisation (Central West Group Apprentices) started there were about 4.5 billion people on the planet. (It is now) seven billion. This unprecedented period of growth is set to continue with some UN estimates projecting that we will have 10 billion people on the planet by the time our current apprentices are set to retire. Sometimes we forget that we have only one planet to support this growth, and that the way we live in on it now cannot be supported by our natural systems in the future. We are reaching the safe operating limit of our planet, and we’ve reached a number of natural resource limits as a result. Our planet is undergoing rapid climate change and the international scientific consensus is that we are a cause of it.” – Ben Bardon

There is a sense of urgency in Ben Bardon’s message, but it is not all bad news. The very fact that The Flannery Centre is being established is good reason to hope.

“We have had a great deal of interest and my feeling is that most people are worried about how climate change and other global issues will affect their children and think that we need something like this,” he says.

In addition to traineeships and apprenticeships,  courses available through Skillset include;

•Certificates II, III and IV in Agriculture
•Diploma of Management
•Climate Change for Small to Medium Enterprises
•Natural Landscape Function Fundamentals
•Living Sustainably



Go to www.skillset.com.au for more information on Skillset courses or the Flannery Centre.