Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thought the contribution by the honourable member for Fisher was a rather weak one. He normally speaks quite well, but most of his speech was about attacking the Australian Labor Party and there was no substance to his comments. That reflects the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill 2006. It is hard for anybody on that side of the House to get excited when they know that this is really a nonsense bill and that there are a lot of other ways that things could be done instead of introducing this legislation.

The purpose of this bill is to amend the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Act 2005, which provides for the establishment and operation of Australian technical colleges. The act provides funding for colleges over the period 2005 to 2009. It also establishes a regulation-making power to allow for funding to be carried over or brought forward into another calendar year, removing the need for future recourse to legislation such as this bill to alter the timing of funding. Of course, there is so much uncertainty about these colleges that the government needs to have that sort of flexibility, which is probably a very bad thing from the point of view of accountability, auditing and so on.

Labor supports this bill, though these colleges seem redundant. Why on earth are we setting up a whole set of new colleges around Australia with new associated expenses when we have a perfectly good TAFE system currently operating? Not only that, it is very difficult to get information about the setting up of these colleges, what courses there will be and how they will be run. A bit of a secret operation is going on around what is actually happening. There have been disputes in Tasmania as rival private groups rally to pick up the extra money. The new colleges have been structured so that groups which should be working together to support training have been pitted against each other and are fighting to get influence and control. I have no problem with putting more funds into the hands of tertiary and further education providers, but why is it necessary to have a whole new system in place to do that? We could provide more places if we beefed up the TAFE system around Australia. As there are only four colleges operating in 2006, with enrolments of fewer than 100 students, only 100 students will be qualified by 2010. That is the contribution of this government to addressing the skills shortage.

The Australian Industry Group estimates that we will need an extra 100,000 skilled workers by 2010. So the situation is that only one-thousandth of the skilled workers Australia needs will be trained under this regime, which is a pretty appalling effort to address the urgent need of the country. The colleges have far too narrow a scope and their implementation has been very bungled. They seem to be years away from being useful in the push to skill our workforce. Added to this are the draconian industrial relations laws, which prevent the recruitment of good college staff. They have been frightened off by the insistence that if they go into these colleges they will have to sign an AWA before they are employed. That is frightening off lots of good staff who might have been given a job there.

The Labor Party has a much better plan and a more systematic approach to dealing with the skills shortage. I remember, when Working Nation operated, we managed to reach many of those young people who found college entry very hard but could access on-the-job training very satisfactorily. Some refinements could have been made to that program but essentially it managed to set many more students on a good training path and gave them an opportunity for a start and to get into formal training—something that this government does not seem to have any understanding of. We must invest in our skills base through a strong education and training system.

This government has an appalling record of allowing Australia to be the only developed country to reduce public investment in our TAFEs and universities. Public investment in our universities and TAFEs has fallen eight per cent since 1996. The OECD average is a 38 per cent increase. So we know where this government is going. It is a shocking record. Those new colleges will go nowhere near fixing this lack of training. We need to work with the states to improve the education and training that already exists, firstly by improving the conditions that many of the schools and colleges work under now. Labor’s approach would be to improve the workshops and trade facilities in the secondary schools and to refurbish the technology and science labs across secondary and TAFE establishments. We could then improve on the skills and trades on offer.

So many things have changed as technology has changed. The types of skills needed now will require a whole new set of workshop facilities and training opportunities. Australia has always been at the forefront of innovation—and we are still there—but most of our good ideas go offshore because of the lack of skilled people to undertake the development work. I will quote from an article by Chris Styles, who is a senior lecturer in marketing at the University of New South Wales, and Tim Hardcourt, who is the chief economist of the Australian Trade Commission, on how they see innovation and where our skills need to be honed:

Business innovation can also be about new ways of manufacturing products or services (or, indeed, adding services to products), novel ways of working with and configuring supplier and distribution networks, and different approaches to attracting and retaining the best staff. In sum, its about being truly different from rivals on a number of fronts (and receiving the substantial rewards for being so), rather than playing the same game as everyone else and competing on implementation and price (while blaming the resultant low margins on being in a ‘mature industry’).

All these areas of business innovation are crucial if ideas are to create value for customers, shareholders and society though increasing the number of sustainable jobs. Of course, new scientific technologies play a crucial role in all of this. But they are only the means to execute brilliant customer driven business ideas, not ends in themselves. Companies that developed innovative businesses—such as Dell in the US, IKEA in Sweden, and Servcorp in Australia—created new categories, established new competitive rules, and forced others to play catch-up.

Of course, we see this principle at work in sport every weekend: the Australian cricket team plays a very different game to the rest of the world; Kevin Sheedy of Essendon and Rodney Eade of the Sydney Swans invented radical new tactics in the AFL; and no-one drives a formula 1 car like Michael Schumacher or devises race strategies like his Ferrari tactician Ross Brawn. All make use of technology—particularly IT—but its the way they think, challenge existing assumptions and keep others guessing that makes them stand out from the rest. That’s innovation. And while Ian Thorpe’s ‘fast skin’ swimming suit is an example of an important technical innovation, it combines with his natural talent, work ethic and unique training regime to bring him success at the Olympics and FINA championships (those big feet of his also probably help).

The article continues:

At both the country and firm level Australia needs to put more effort into encouraging and supporting scientific research. However, turning great ideas into sustainable jobs and shareholder value requires more than this. Research into business innovation, and education to develop managers capable of creating innovative businesses, must also be a priority. Commercialisation is different from inventing. Otherwise, at best, we may just end up with a whole lot of better mouse traps.

Unemployment will always be one of the major drivers of all forms of social dislocation, from poverty to poor outcomes in health and crime. We have seen this particularly in our Indigenous communities lately, but it is still there among the whole of the Australian population. Despite this government’s rhetoric that we have much lower unemployment nowadays—they say under five per cent—it is all in the manipulation of figures.

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