Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

I was making the point in my introductory comments yesterday before the debate on the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill 2006 was interrupted that in my view the Prime Minister had engaged in overblown hyperbole when he talked about the new Australian technical colleges as being ‘the centrepiece of our drive to tackle skill shortages and to revolutionalise vocational education and training throughout Australia’. In terms of the latter part of his comment about revolutionising vocational education and training, there is no doubt that part-inspiration for these new technical colleges was the desire by the Howard government to force and implement its industrial relations agenda in the creation of these new colleges. The claim that the colleges are to be the ‘centrepiece of our drive to tackle skill shortages’ is just a lot of hyperbole.

The Prime Minister and members on the other side of the chamber seem to want to run the line that the skill shortages that have emerged are symptomatic of a booming economy and low rates of unemployment. I made the point yesterday that that correlation does not compute in the region I represent—the Illawarra. The Illawarra currently has one of the highest rates of regional unemployment. The most recent data shows unemployment at 8.9 per cent and full-time youth unemployment at 36.8 per cent. Almost 40 per cent of people in the 15- to 19-year-old age group who are looking for full-time work cannot get it. At the same time, we have huge skill shortages. So to say that these colleges are going to address this very serious problem is unbelievable.

As to an assessment of whether these colleges are good public policy and good expenditure of public funds, I do not believe that to be the case. There are other, much more cost-effective ways that you can tackle skill shortages and youth unemployment. I cited the example of a project that has been very successful in the Illawarra by which means 220 unemployed young people—who would have been part of that 36.8 per cent statistic—have been able to do a six-month pre-apprenticeship training course at the TAFE institute. When they graduate they have the equivalent of a first-year apprenticeship. They are much more easily placed with an employer if they come out with that level of qualification. Yet every year, as the committee that oversights this program, we have to go knocking on the doors of ministers to try to extract a miserable $100,000 from government to help us support this project. The state government, to its credit, has made a huge investment. It funds the six-month pre-apprenticeship courses that enable these young unemployed people to come out with the equivalent of a first-year apprenticeship.

In the Illawarra we have already placed 220 young people, at a minimal contribution from the federal government, and yet the government is talking about investing a huge amount of public funding to create a parallel system, to create a new technical college. There are no stated deficiencies in the ability of the Illawarra Institute of TAFE to respond proactively to the needs of our community. The problem has not been caused by a booming economy and low unemployment rates. As I said earlier, that does not hold in my electorate. The problem has been caused because the government has been asleep at the watch.

Numerous organisations, including credible organisations like AiG and ACCI, have drawn the government’s attention to the skills crisis year upon year. Rather belatedly, the Howard government have come to realise that there is such a thing as a genuine skills crisis, but it still will not accept responsibility for being asleep on the watch, saying, ‘We just have to accept this happens because of a buoyant economy.’

I do not accept that. In my view, the government can blame nobody other than itself for allowing this crisis to develop. According to independent advice from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research, in 2004 there was a four per cent drop in the number of trainees and apprentices in training nationally in Australia. In relation to my own electorate, I put a question on notice to the government to track what was happening in apprenticeship training in the Illawarra. I asked what had occurred from 1996 onwards. By the government’s own admission in the answer to my question on notice, the number of trades and the related workers in training—that is, apprentices in training—in the traditional trades fell from a level of 880 young people undertaking training in 1996 to 870 people undertaking training in 2004. So we were training fewer people in the traditional trades in 2004 than we were in the first year of the Howard government. Having 870 young people in training in 2004 was in fact a marked improvement on what was happening in the early 2000s. In 2001 the number of people in training had fallen to only 630.

This is not something that has occurred overnight. This has been part of a long-term trend and the government failed to take heed of the alarm bells ringing. So, in my view, it is right and proper for the opposition to query whether this initiative is good public policy. We do not oppose the bill, but we are suggesting in our contributions to the debate that there are other creative ways of addressing the skills crisis. It seems amazing that the government can find the allocations to create a parallel system of TAFE colleges when we know that for years there has been a huge underspend in the technical and vocational education area, particularly on enabling our TAFE system to meet the unmet demand.

As I say, I have major reservations about the proposal because it does not deal with the issues confronting the people I represent. Both the young unemployed and the businesses, predominantly small businesses, are crying out for skilled labour now—not in 2010, not in 2012 but now, today. What is the government’s response to that? Nothing. At best they think that 7½ thousand students graduating from these colleges, if they all get up and running, will solve the problem. It will not.

The decision to establish these colleges will barely make a dent in the skills crisis. At best we will see 7½ thousand students go through these colleges when they are fully operational. But there is a question mark about whether they will all become fully operational when we have only four up and running and one of those four has only one student enrolled. The 7½ thousand students who would have gone through the colleges represent only two per cent of all Australian students in years 11 and 12. The overwhelming majority of senior secondary students, let alone the huge numbers of young unemployed that I spoke about earlier, will have no affinity and no connection with these colleges. Businesses in my electorate tell me they cannot afford to wait year after year for action from this government. They are crying out for skilled labour now, not in four or five years time. We all know that we have an estimated shortage in the vicinity of 100,000 skilled workers. The graduates from these parallel, alternative colleges will provide just a drop in the bucket in dealing with this crisis. Having 25 new colleges training a maximum of 7½ thousand students who do not graduate until 2010 to 2012 is, in my view, a totally limited and inadequate response to a crisis which everyone acknowledges is imposing severe constraints on our future economic capacity.

So let us look at what has been achieved in terms of the Prime Minister’s statement that these colleges are to be the ‘centrepiece of our drive to tackle skills shortages and to revolutionise vocational education and training’. We know that there are supposed to be 25 colleges, but 20 months after the announcement there are only four open for business. Each of the 25 colleges was supposed to have 300 students enrolled in years 11 and 12, which was in keeping with the promise that something like 7½ thousand students would graduate. How many students are in fact being catered for in these colleges? Gladstone technical college in Queensland has but one student enrolled. No-one can tell me that that is not a wasteful expenditure of public funds. There are fewer than 300 students enrolled in the other colleges on the Gold Coast and in east Melbourne and Port Macquarie. There are 300 students at four colleges rather than 300 students at each college. Yet our Illawarra apprenticeship committee has had great trouble getting a miserable $100,000 commitment to a program that has already placed 220 young unemployed people into apprenticeships in the Illawarra.

There is no word on exactly how many of the 300 students in the four colleges are actually new to vocational education and training, who are learning a trade for the first time in a new college rather than just continuing their vocational studies at a school with a new name. A whole year after the tenders closed we have only 12 funding agreements out of the 22 announced by the minister. Three regions have had no announcement on the preferred bidder, let alone on whether a college might open. We do not even know whether they will open at all. I know there was some talk about Illawarra being provided with one of these colleges. I have not heard any more. I know there have been endless negotiations and discussions, but 20 months after the announcement where is the college proposed to be in the Illawarra? Is it ever going to eventuate? Wouldn’t that money be better diverted to the existing TAFE system and to the project I have referred to which has shown success on the ground in my electorate?

I want to also point out that there are genuine concerns about whether these colleges will see the light of day when one looks at the underspend that has occurred. The report of the opposition senators on the Senate Employment, Workplace Relations and Education Committee said:

A lack of financial transparency surrounding these Colleges is of concern. The Government has, at two Senate Estimates hearings, refused to provide details of the 11 funding contracts signed with individual Colleges. Advice from the Department given to this Committee at the Budget Estimates in June 2006 showed that as of 30 May 2006 whilst $185 million has been committed to the Australian Technical Colleges only $18 million has been spent. This is out of a total Budget of $343 million over five years.

The Opposition notes the provisions of the Bill which seek to introduce a regulation making power to allow for funding changes between program years without the need for further resource to legislation.

…            …            …

This proposed section would reduce the extent of Parliamentary oversight of this program which is regrettable. Spending to date indicates that current expenditure and training targets may not be met and Opposition Senators look forward to the opportunity to scrutinise any future regulations made under this new power.

So, with fewer than 300 students currently enrolled, businesses and families in my electorate are going to be waiting for a very long time before they reap any benefit from the government’s promises. We cannot afford to wait too much longer because, I repeat, unemployment statistics at the end of May show that in my region the overall unemployment rate is 8.9 per cent and the youth full-time unemployment rate is 36.8 per cent. We have a huge skills crisis not just among the traditional trades. Surprisingly, at the top of the shortages list are kitchen hands. While all this has been happening, we have had a very successful apprenticeship pilot program that has placed 220 young unemployed people into apprenticeships. But trying to get money out of this government is like trying to draw blood from a stone. I think the Prime Minister’s rhetoric about this being the ‘centrepiece of our drive to tackle skills shortages’ is well short of the mark and the government would be well advised to look at projects that are working on the ground and fund those in a sensible way, instead of trying to establish an alternative, parallel TAFE system.

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