Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

It is a disgrace. In essence, the bill has two purposes: one is to bring forward funding from later years in the forward estimates to this year and next year—on the face of it that is a good thing, but I will come to that in a minute; and the second is to allow future similar reallocations to be done by regulation as distinct from parliamentary enactment. We support the bill, but, as I indicated, we have moved a second reading amendment.

I rise to talk on this bill because after all of my years in public life I remain convinced that the greatest investment that a nation can make is in the education and training of its people. It is the investment that is the great enabler in our society. It enhances an individual’s opportunities; it also drives the economy and helps to shape a more tolerant and civilised society. As such, it is a benefit not just to the individual but to the community. It is a public good, not just a private good. Because it is a public good, governments not only must recognise it but must invest adequately in it. It is my charge that that is what this government has failed to do over the past 10 years.

Not only do we have to create opportunities for people to progress beyond secondary school but we must also provide for a system of lifelong learning. Learning and skill formation does not stop at secondary school—it does not stop when people leave their formal education. So governments are not only faced with the challenge of having to provide better funding for affordable education in the traditional sense; they must also fund a lifelong learning framework. We must be flexible and innovative in creating different pathways and options for skill formation. As I said before, it is an investment that this government has consistently failed to make at adequate levels over its past 10 years in office. That is the reason we face the skills shortages that beset this nation today, creating a constraint on the nation’s capacity and an underperformance in a global market of opportunity.

It was interesting yesterday in question time that, in answer to a question, the Prime Minister acknowledged that we have a skills crisis. But it is a crisis that he and his government have created by failing to make the necessary investment in skills. Whilst the 25 technical colleges are welcome, the response by the government has been inadequate. The Prime Minister also holds that part of the solution to this problem—in fact, his entire solution at the moment—is to turn to importing our skills. Labor has never opposed skilled migration as a potential contributor to our labour force in areas where particular skills are required which can only be provided by skilled migrants. This is particularly pertinent in much of regional Australia. But there has to be a balance, and we must provide training for our people first, particularly our young people. If we get that right it obviates the need to turn to importing skills through skilled migration programs.

In essence, the Howard government has been importing skilled migrants while at the same time turning people away from TAFE and university. It relies on the section 457 visas to ensure that we get skilled labour, but recent examples have demonstrated that these 457 visas have not been bringing in skilled people. A recent example is the Kilcoy meatworks, where 25 of the 40 people brought in under skilled migration programs went to unskilled work, not as slaughtermen as was sought under the 457 visa application. Here is another example of the quick fix that fails when it is not administered to serve the purpose for which it was introduced. The truth is that this government has no comprehensive plan—no strategic approach to addressing the real crisis that besets this nation: a massive shortfall in skilled labour. We have to invest in the future; we have to build our human capital.

The 25 technical colleges that this bill, in part, relates to were announced in 2004. Two years later only four of the 25 are in operation, teaching fewer than 300 students. That is my point about the inadequacy of this response. We are not opposed to the concept; we are not opposed to the bill; we are saying it is a totally inadequate response. This bill seeks to bring forward funding from 2008 and 2009 to 2006-07. On the face of it, that is welcome, but what is the reality? The establishment of a number of these technical colleges has been very problematic indeed. Bidders have failed to satisfy tender requirements. The Australian technical colleges for Geelong, Illawarra, Darwin and Adelaide North may not meet their projected start-up dates.

The Minister for Vocational and Technical Education, Mr Hardgrave, has threatened to scrap planned colleges in Dubbo, Queanbeyan and Lismore-Ballina not because of lack of community support, as the member for Riverina suggested in her recent contribution, but because these colleges will not sign up to the government’s AWAs. This is a circumstance of crossed priorities. We know the government will do whatever it takes to get its AWAs up—that is a matter for a separate debate—but this debate on the skilling of our people is too important to become hostage to another agenda. I ask the people in the public gallery which is more important: the training of our kids, thereby giving them opportunity in life, or the government’s insistence that AWAs be the determinant of the circumstances under which the teachers are employed?

Let us back the teachers under any circumstance so long as they deliver quality skills formation. That is not what this government is doing. Potentially three of these colleges will be scrapped, not because they failed to deliver what the bill purports they will offer but because the government is driven by this mad ideology on another front. This government introduced AWAs under Work Choices, but what choice is it when the teachers have no choice? They have to take AWAs. They cannot choose to collectively bargain, because the government will not let them. That is no choice at all. It is another example of the government’s naming bills exactly the opposite to what they purport to carry out.

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