Julia Irwin (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Whilst a number of bills related to the establishment of Australian technical colleges have come before the House, this is the first time that I have spoken on them. Can I begin by expressing my amazement at some of the contributions by government members to this debate on the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill 2006, and I have listened to a number of them. We have here an initiative which is being talked up as the solution to the skills crisis in Australia, but its implementation has well and truly gone off the rails. In fact, the very reason for this bill is to redistribute funding between the program years by pushing the unspent funds from the early years to later years. There could be no clearer indication of the failure of the program than these delays.

But I do not want to dwell on that aspect of the bill; rather, I want to point out the folly of the program in the first place, which I believe is the main reason for the slow progress. If Australian technical colleges are meant to be the government’s solution to the skills crisis that we are facing in Australia, you have to wonder if the government has got any idea of the problem we are facing. The truth seems to be that the government does realise the extent of the shortages but has a strategy to fill the gaps with skilled migration. Australian technical colleges are really just a ploy to try to convince the electorate that the government is serious about training.

Even if we accept at face value that Australian technical colleges are a genuine effort by this government to encourage young people to undertake trade training, we have to judge its potential for success against other programs which may be more widely available and more cost effective. To begin with, we should put Australian technical colleges into perspective. When fully implemented and with their full capacity of 7,000 students, Australian technical colleges will represent less than one per cent of TAFE students in Australia. We are measuring skilled labour shortages in the hundreds of thousands, but when this program is in full operation it will provide only a few thousand entrants to full trade training. Australian technical colleges are nothing more than a bit of window dressing.

But what makes it worse is that it is set up in competition with state government initiatives, which can result only in more duplication and wasted resources. We have already seen a reluctance on the part of the New South Wales government to participate. Why would they when they have their own major programs for vocational training in schools? To make matters worse, whilst vocational training in schools is one way of addressing our skills crisis, it can play only a minor role in solving that crisis. When it comes to addressing the major factors, this government is doing little or nothing to ensure an adequate supply of skilled workers. The biggest contribution to our skills base is not at the input end. What we are doing is trying to fill the bucket while it has a gaping hole in the bottom.

If all the people with trade qualifications were now working in their trade, we would have a skills surplus, but the sad fact is that, when you look at trade course graduates 10 years after they have come out of their time, you find that more than one-third are no longer working in their trade. In some trades the figure is more than half. How many times have you spoken to a driver or a security guard, or to a police officer, as I have, or to a number of other people and they have said, ‘Actually, I’m a plumber,’ or an electrician or a fitter by trade? But they are no longer working in that trade.

The really sad fact about trades in Australia is that they are just that—a trade. In most cases they do not develop into a career, and as workers get into the later years of their working life only a small fraction still work in their trade. Some, like those in the printing industry, will have seen their trade become redundant. Others such as motor mechanics, bricklayers and roof tilers will have lost the physical strength to continue. The list can go on. Injury will have forced some to leave their trade, and they cannot be blamed for that. While governments cannot do a great deal to assist some of those workers, the lack of retraining programs is a national disgrace.

To come back to the objective of Australian technical colleges in trying to attract young people to enter trades, there are two factors that these colleges do not address. The first of these is the lack of training opportunities for what we might call the ‘traditional’ trades. I know that when I left school many of the young men I knew went into a trade. They were strongly encouraged to have a trade qualification. It was seen by my parents’ generation as a very good thing to do. ‘Get a trade, son,’ was good fatherly advice at the time. Parents did not have to worry as they do today, because they knew then that their child could get a trade.

Trade-training opportunities were readily available. Our railway workshops, electricity distributors, the PMG or what we now know as Telstra—those and many of the bigger private companies had large trade-training facilities. Apprentices often spent their first year on the job in the trade-training workshops of these organisations. They provided an excellent standard of training and ensured that they had the best skills available for their workforce. Unfortunately, other employers who did not invest in training were able to poach these skilled workers with slightly higher pay and, as these large public and private employers began to tighten their belts, they found that trade training did not give direct results for their bottom line, so the programs were severely cut back.

Today we have group apprenticeship schemes and they do a good job in sharing apprentices among employers. By gaining experience in a range of fields, it could be said that these apprentices have better training in some cases. But I hear reports that group schemes are seeking more employers to take on apprentices and that opportunities in some popular trades are limited. While today some employers may say they find it difficult to find apprentices, one thing I always find hard to explain is that, when you look at the census figures, some electorates have much higher rates of people with trade qualifications than others. I know that my electorate of Fowler, in western Sydney, has a rate lower than those of some surrounding electorates, like Prospect, Macarthur and even Werriwa. So when I hear of young people in my electorate who are finding it difficult to get into a trade, I wonder if it is their lack of contacts in those trades that stands in their way rather than a lack of ability.

I have followed with interest the development of pre-apprenticeship schemes such as those in the Illawarra. Almost all those undertaking these pre-apprenticeships are able to get an apprenticeship in their chosen field. I would expect the same to apply to Australian technical college trainees, as it should for those undertaking vocational training in schools. But the distribution of these courses will determine who has access and, as I have already noted, the number in Australian technical colleges is very small compared with the number seeking apprenticeships, so this really becomes the limiting factor.

When I look at a second factor in encouraging the uptake of trade training, I have to question the wisdom of assuming that a decision taken by a 15-year-old will determine his or her lifelong occupation. As I said earlier, an alarming number of trained tradespeople leave their trade even at a very early age, so investing in training for school aged children has to be questioned. As we also know, drop-out rates in trades can be very high and, while rates of pay and other factors may be important, anyone who has experience of teenagers could easily explain why a decision taken at age 15 is not seen in the same light when a person is 17, 18 or 19 years of age. This is where we need to closely question the wisdom of investing quite large amounts of money, as we are doing with Australian technical colleges. We will need to study their effectiveness in leading to students going on to complete a trade and we should compare this level of success with alternatives such as school based vocational training and pre-apprenticeship courses. I say to the government this evening: look after our children. They are Australia’s future.

Debate (on motion by Mr Nairn) adjourned.

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