Stuart Henry (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Certainly, it has been interesting sitting here listening to the member for Melbourne talking about his aptitude and lack of aptitude for his woodworking skills and the associated hand skills required to carry out those sorts of tasks successfully. To some extent I can relate to that, having at an early age developed some dexterity in my manual skills. One thing for sure that the member does have an aptitude for is rhetoric. That is certainly a great skill to have when you are on the opposition benches. One thing about the Howard government is that it is very strong on action. There is no doubt that the Australian technical colleges will provide a great opportunity for those young people with a desire, commitment and aptitude for developing their hand skills, manual skills and their interest in trade training.

Of all of the responsibilities of governments, education and training would have to be at the top of the list of priorities. Even when you consider the other top priorities such as economic strength, health, defence, infrastructure, crime, environmental protection and essential services, it is hard to see any aspect of modern life that is not impacted dramatically by our education and training levels. Challenges like our current skills shortages ripple through the community in many ways. That is why we should leave no stone unturned and no opportunity postponed in our efforts to provide the best education and training system we can. Unlike the previous Labor administration, the Howard government is moving strongly in that direction. That is in spite of strong opposition by the state Labor governments, which are being dragged kicking and screaming to the negotiating table to ensure that we get a national approach to vocational training and apprenticeships. That is happening. The government was indeed leaving no stone unturned when it introduced the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) legislation in 2005. Now just one year later it is leaving no opportunity postponed by introducing the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill 2006 to respond to the even better than expected reaction from the community in establishing Australian technical colleges across the nation.

Vocational education and training is a particular passion of mine and I am very pleased to rise to speak in support of this bill today. Skills shortages are being experienced across the globe. Here in Australia we have skills needs across a variety of industries, including automotive, building and construction, electrotechnology, commercial cookery and manufacturing. These industries offer young Australians strong, secure, diverse, challenging and rewarding careers, yet many of the jobs and training places go unfilled. It is incumbent upon all members of this parliament, on both sides of this House, to approach this situation with an openness, a thorough understanding of the issues and a willingness to be innovative and responsive to the needs of young people, industries and employers in those industries.

It is vital that we teach skills relevant to the current and future needs of industry. It is equally vital that we help our young people find and achieve their potential in a career which suits them and offers them all a prosperous and rewarding future. This means we need new approaches to attracting more young people into training for what are sometimes called the traditional trades—although I would point out that many people who make easy proclamations about the trades have precious little knowledge of them. My own years of experience working with tradespeople and employers in various trades comes from my previous role as executive director of two trade associations—the Master Plumbers and Gasfitters Association and the Master Painters Association—and also as Chairman of the World Plumbing Council. These experiences have taught me well that we must redefine what we mean by traditional. There are certainly aspects of tradition we must retain, protect and promote, but we also need very non-traditional thinking so that we can keep the core values of trades in a modern, rapidly-changing context.

The development of the Australian technical colleges is designed to do just this. Basing them in the final compulsory school years and ensuring they are closely linked to conventional school curricula, leading vocational training practices and local industry leadership gives trades the value they deserve and the focus that young people need. Local industry and community representatives have a leadership role in the governance of each of the colleges. The direct involvement of industry and community leaders will ensure that the skills taught to students match those skills required by local businesses. Students will be trained in these skills through a school based new apprenticeship which leads to a nationally recognised vocational education and training qualification. At the same time, students will also complete the academic subjects required for their year 12 certificate. It is essential that all state and territory governments recognise the need for and the value of providing school based apprenticeships to meet the career aspirations of our young people and the skill needs of our employers.

The barriers to these outcomes in Western Australia must be removed by the Minister for Education and Training, particularly now that the Premier has stepped in to fix the OBE issue. By offering high-quality training facilities and an instruction link to workplace requirements, the colleges will raise the profile and status of vocational pathways in schools and demonstrate that these vocational courses are genuine career paths for students which should be at least as valued as going to university. The colleges will provide high-status, high-quality opportunities for young people to build a genuinely exciting career for themselves in traditional trades.

This concept has been so well received by the community that Australian technical colleges are being established faster than predicted. In 2005 the government announced that it would fund the establishment of 25 Australian technical colleges across the nation by 2009. Four colleges are already up and running. They are out there making it happen for their students in under a year. And the news gets better: at least another 20 are in development and expected to be operational some time in 2007.

This result is a credit not only to the government’s initiative in establishing the colleges but also to the industry and businesspeople who have responded so positively to the opportunity and are getting right behind this initiative. This bill is sheer good news. It does not affect the overall budget of $343.6 million for the program; it merely brings forward funding which had been allocated to the 2008-09 financial year so that it can be available in 2006-07. This is a happy obligation indeed, as it is in response to a galvanising of action in communities themselves. How short-sighted would it be for any of us in this House to turn a blind eye to these efforts and tell these people that they will have to wait because of accounting issues in Canberra? In my opinion, opposition to this bill would be exactly that: a slap in the face of people who are out there doing their best for their industry, for young people and, as a result, for Australia. If you, like me, know the sorts of people involved in establishing Australian technical colleges, you too would be inspired by their efforts and collaboration.

For example, in my own electorate the Australian technical college Perth South is set to commence in February 2007 and proposes to operate as a multicampus, non-government senior secondary college in Maddington and Armadale with a satellite campus based in Rockingham. My colleague the member for Canning and I were very pleased to be present for the signing of the Perth South ATC funding agreement by the Minister for Vocational and Technical Education, the Hon. Gary Hardgrave, at the ATC site in Maddington earlier this month—a great occasion for the local community. Securing this ATC for the south-eastern suburbs of Perth has been an important goal since my election and I am proud to be involved in providing these additional training opportunities for my constituents and their families. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the member for Canning for his hard work and support in securing the Perth South ATC, which will benefit the residents in both of our electorates.

I would also like to acknowledge the fantastic efforts of the City of Gosnells, particularly the Mayor of Gosnells, Councillor Pat Morris, and the CEO of the City of Gosnells, Mr Stuart Jardine. The City of Gosnells has shown real leadership in improving and developing suburbs in the south-eastern corridor of Perth and has worked closely with both Don and me to secure positive outcomes for its ratepayers and our constituents. I am also very pleased to be able to advise that Councillor Pat Morris, Mayor of the City of Gosnells, and her CEO, Mr Stuart Jardine, have been visiting this parliament today. It is great to have this opportunity to speak in support of their efforts on this occasion.

Our electorates will gain enormous benefits from the presence of the new ATC, as will the member for Brand’s electorate. Despite the member’s constant carping, and despite what we heard from the member for Melbourne earlier, about the Howard government’s policies to address skills shortages, it took Phil Edman, the Liberal candidate for Brand, to work with the minister and secure the satellite campus of the Perth South ATC for Rockingham to follow shortly after the development of the campuses in Maddington and Armadale. The member for Brand made no effort to secure additional training and employment opportunities for his constituents that come with the presence of an ATC campus—in fact, he seemed rather nonplussed when commenting on it in the local newspaper. His commitment to vocational training is mere rhetoric, limited to union based training, ignoring any alternatives and certainly ignoring opportunities for his own constituents provided by the Howard government. This is somewhat underpinned by the huge level of teenage unemployment that we as a nation experienced during his period as Minister for Employment, Education and Training—34.5 per cent teenage unemployment in those years, an absolute disgrace.

Like all Australian technical colleges, the Perth South college is a model determined locally and driven by local industry and business. In the Perth South case, the college is being established by Stirling Skills Training Inc., which is both a registered training organisation and a Jobs Pathway Program provider, in partnership with the cities of Gosnells and Armadale, and the Armadale Redevelopment Authority. The college is well supported by the Housing Industry Association, the Master Builders Association, the Motor Trades Association and local employers. From the outset, the college will provide an integrated years 11 and 12 curriculum offering a relevant academic program, business skills training and an initial focus on the key trade areas of automotive and building and construction. Training in electrotechnology and metals and engineering will also be offered from 2009.

It is a truism that the future prosperity of our country and, indeed, the continued growth of our nation’s economy depends in large part upon the availability of a skilled and flexible workforce. The workforce must not only be world class in quality but also be capable of meeting the needs of Australia’s industry, which operates in an increasingly aggressive and volatile environment of competition at home and abroad. The resource and construction sectors are great examples of this. The Skilling Australia’s Workforce legislation introduced in 2005 created this government’s new national funding arrangements for vocational education and training.

The Howard government has committed an investment of nearly $5 billion in the future of skills training and skills development by the end of 2008. This included nearly $580 million provided to the states and territories last year, representing an increase of $175 million over the 2004 figures, which equates to an increase in real terms of 3.2 per cent. When we consider this government’s other vocational education and training initiatives, the investment over four years will together amount to a record $10.1 billion. It is important to note that this funding is not the sort for which industry associations or training providers have to jump through unnecessary hoops. Instead it is the sort of funding that enables people to just get on with the important matters at hand: facilitating the best possible outcomes for Australia’s young people and for those crucial Australian enterprises looking to develop their workforce for the future by taking on trainees and apprentices. The Australian Chamber of Commerce has said:

Without doubt ATCs mark the beginning of a bold new approach by the Australian Government as part of a suite of strategies to address Australia’s skill shortage problem.

I am not sure I can say it better. It also says:

ATC graduates will be highly skilled individuals, gaining skills from industry experience and capable of running their own businesses in the future. They will be nurtured by their industry of choice and encouraged to stay there. Future study options will be available to them and they will provide role models to younger students.

In fact, such a student is sitting in the gallery tonight. She happens to be my young 16-year-old daughter, Harriet. She is the sort of young person who will benefit greatly from this contribution to education and vocational training by the Howard government—which is providing options, providing flexibility and providing choice in the career pathways that young people may take in the future.

I also concur with the ACCI’s comment that one key contribution of Australian technical colleges is the potential to achieve cultural change on how we view vocational education and training. I feel privileged to have worked for so long with people who have been trained in the trades. Many of the most intelligent, innovative, skilled and personally successful people I have met gained their formative education through trade training. To me, it has always seemed ill informed, narrow-minded and short-sighted that we often act as if university is the be-all and end-all of education. A strong university sector is, it goes without saying, absolutely fundamental to Australia’s future in terms of both its research and its education contributions. I am only arguing that we need a way to reassert that vocational education and training is just as important for us to take seriously at a national level. It is just as important that we communicate this with educators working directly with young people, crucially with the parents of young people and, ultimately, with the young people themselves.

I have been greatly heartened by the Howard government’s consultative and constructive approach and its commitment to working towards real change. In developing the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Bill 2005, the government consulted with key stakeholders and received strong support for its direction and strong leadership for real change on vocational training. We are enjoying the lowest levels of unemployment and highest levels of economic prosperity in some 30 years; but, as I have observed in this House before, that situation brings with it a number of challenges and its own set of responsibilities. We must not allow the prosperity of the generations to follow us to be undermined by either an unwillingness to reform workplace relations or a lack of investment in developing the skills of the workforce of tomorrow.

The original bill establishing Australian technical colleges sent a strong message to the Australian community that vocational and skills based training is valued and, indeed, vital for the future prosperity of this nation. They heard us, they agreed and they responded. They got together and started making things happen, not here in parliament but in the local communities where change actually becomes real in people’s lives. Businesses, schools, industry bodies, local government agencies, training providers, employers and others are working together even better than we had hoped. This bill of amendments is a mark of respect for their response and a vote of confidence in their efforts. It says: you listened to us and responded; we are listening to you and responding. This is how it is supposed to work. As I said earlier, this amendment bill is pure good news. I wholeheartedly commend it to the House.

See this speech in context