Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

So there are 14 speakers for us this evening, and none of the government members has bothered to turn up tonight and support this initiative of the government.

Whilst Labor supports the bill before the House to give greater administrative flexibility, allowing the government to expedite the allocation of funds between program years because of changing circumstances to the establishment of the ATCs, I can but agree with the conclusion in the Bills Digest. Sometimes the Bills Digest gets it right on the money. It says in the concluding comments:

As the Explanatory Memorandum states, the regulation making power is intended to provide greater flexibility and efficiency in the administration of the ATC program. However a question remains about the level of parliamentary scrutiny that will be applied to the delivery of the program.

That is the Bills Digest, not something that has been written by Labor, a commentator or anybody else. There is a question over the scrutiny of this whole program, and allowing this change will ensure greater diversity in how the money is administered.

Whilst Labor has supported the creation of the ATCs, it is with a sort of a half-hearted and very critical enthusiasm, because it is way too little and way too late. Most of the money going into this program could have been much better spent in other areas. It could have been much better spent by giving it to existing systems that are already providing this much-needed service. Australia needs urgent action to address the skills crisis of our nation. Labor supports the introduction of the ATCs, as I say, but it is way too little and it is way too late.

We have a skills crisis in this country and no end of discussion about Labor’s xenophobic reaction to importing skilled migrants is going to resolve that crisis. No number of ATCs established today, which will not produce one new skilled person into our community before 2010, is going to resolve this crisis. The Howard neglect, this government’s complete abrogation of skills for the last 10 years, has created the situation. They squandered the situation that Labor had created for them. They squandered it away and they have done nothing to help it. The Howard government have systematically underfunded the TAFE sector. They have systematically seen reduction within the TAFE sector. Indeed, the Howard government record in this area is nothing short of a disgrace.

Under the Howard government, Australia is the only developed country to have reduced public investment in our TAFEs and universities. Everybody else has realised that to progress you have to skill, you have to diversify, you have to become clever. We are not going to compete on a dollar-for-dollar basis with India and China, so we have to be clever, we have to be better skilled. Instead of doing something about that and investing in our TAFEs and universities, they have actually taken money away. Public investment in our universities and TAFEs has fallen eight per cent since 1995. The OECD average is a 38 per cent increase. So we have had a decrease of eight per cent where everybody else around the world has said, ‘Yes, this is the way to go, this is what we need to do; we need to put money into skills and training.’ Indeed, the Australian Industry Group has estimated that by 2010 we will need an extra 100,000 skilled workers. These ATCs are going to go nowhere near resolving that crisis.

The AiG has also conducted some really good research amongst its many member groups recently and released two reports, one into manufacturing—which, again, is in crisis in this country, and this government seems totally inept in doing anything about it—and another titled World class skills for world class industries. The industries out there recognise that they need world-class skills to get up, and both these reports have said one of the greatest failures for industry in this country at the moment is not only the lack of skilled people but also the lack of resources to train individual people. More importantly, most of these reports come back and say it is not just about skilling people up; it is about reskilling, retraining and ongoing training within the sector to ensure that they have skills needed to compete in this market. The AiG report World class skills for world class industries states:

• Key reforms to the education and training system and employers’ use of the system especially are focused on post entry level training, increased provider competition to provide genuine choice and increased flexibility of training delivery;
• Increased investment by employers in formal training and government support for that investment through financial incentives and the taxation system;
• The adoption of more world class approaches to skilling by employers to improve their effectiveness with encouragement from government employer groups; and
• Increased efforts by employers to develop closer links with their communities to project positive images of trade occupations.

In the manufacturing sector they conclude:

Becoming a more skillful global competitor

• Increase the focus of the training system on the upskilling of existing workers;
• Increase the overall spending on education and training;
• Improved access to recognition of skills for existing employees;
• Extend and refine incentive payments to employers;
• Make Science and Engineering undergraduate programs a National Priority for concessional HECS eligibility; and
• Broaden tax eligibility for self-education expenses for learning beyond current career.

They do not say that the ATCs are going to be resolving their problems any time soon but they recognise that skilling is the way to go, the way to have a focus, and we need to deal with it and we need to deal with it now. This bandaid measure is going to go nowhere near resolving this problem. Since 1998, 300,000 eligible students have been turned away from TAFE places. That is an indictment upon this government—300,000 students have been turned away. Why didn’t the government inject the much-needed cash into our existing and terrific TAFE system—a system this government has systematically starved of funds.

I have in my electorate two fantastic institutions, one being the Box Hill TAFE. It is recognised as Victoria’s best TAFE college. It has indeed won worldwide recognition for the courses it provides. If the money had been given to Box Hill TAFE, these courses could be up and running and they would have probably 100 or more students that they could put through their books now. Why? Because they have the infrastructure, they have the teachers, they have the system—they did not need to go and reinvent the wheel as these ATCs have. The government said that the establishment of these ATCs was to have more of an industry focus. Obviously, the government again has no idea how a TAFE system operates, because my TAFE system is totally connected with the industry in my electorate. It is totally connected with the industry that it serves. Indeed, its whole education focus is based on industry needs. They constantly talk to the industry about what the industry needs. They are constantly talking about what those skilling needs are. They do not do it in isolation.

The previous minister for education used to continually criticise Box Hill TAFE because it had a belly dancing course. What he never actually went on to explain was that the belly dancing course was a full-fee paying course for people interested in doing something outside the norm. What he also did not go on and say about that course was that it got a whole lot of people who had not been inside a training institution for years to come in and see it was not a scary place. They often went to something like belly dancing, tap dancing or cooking at their own expense, fully fee paying, with no government money going in. Then they would go back and take up other training opportunities because they realised that the TAFE was really a friendly environment, it was a great place to study and, particularly for mature age people who had not been inside an educational facility for some time, it was a great opportunity to go back and study. I have Box Hill TAFE saying ‘Why don’t you just give us the money?’ Sitting next door to Box Hill TAFE is the Box Hill Senior Secondary College. Again, it is the absolute model that the government is talking about in the ATC. It is currently existing and already operating. Sadly, I was there last week because four of its portables had burnt down. It is not stopping the school. They run specific TAFE programs. They run VET, VCAL and they educate year 10, 11 and 12 students, predominantly in trades. It is the most progressive, innovative place you can go to. It also offers mainstream courses for the VCE. It has a fantastic arts program and the most innovative sports program. I met with about 15 students over lunch before I did a tour of the college to see, sadly, the damage from the fire but also the recent upgrade that the state government had provided.

There are some fantastic tennis courts at Box Hill senior secondary. If you ever want to play tennis this is the place to go because they have a specific tennis school. They have a football school and they have a basketball school but they also have welding. I went down and met the kids doing their welding subjects. One of the kids said to me: ‘The great thing about doing this is that I get to see what I’ve done at the end of the day.’ This kid’s parents have a property. He has actually researched via the CSIRO website how to produce an instrument so his parents can take some of their eucalyptus leaves and distil them into oil. This kid in Year 11 has gone and researched this. His teachers have been able to provide him with the materials and the instruments to do this.

It is sitting there. It is a big building. The government could have just given the money to the Box Hill Senior Secondary College. It has got the staff. It has got the students. It has got the things. It is up and running. It is connected to industry because it provides the students with the opportunity to go out—predominantly one day a week, some of them two—into industry to work. So they know those connections. Instead we have created in the eastern suburbs an ATC based at Ringwood and at Forest Hill. I am very thankful to the member for Deakin who, when he spoke on this before I rose, told us that there are a whole 13 students at the Ringwood ATC. So there are 12 more than there are at other places but there are 13 students there.

The fascinating thing about the eastern ATC based at Ringwood and St Joseph’s College is that the ATC is sitting in a government secondary school at Ringwood Secondary College. All those students are funded as government students. Even the students who are at the St Joseph’s campus at Forest Hill—St Joseph’s being a private Catholic institution—are on the books as students funded by the state government. The principal of the Ringwood Secondary College is also the principal of the ATC. The committee of management for the ATC is a subcommittee of the school committee. So we have created this other entity with 13 students but it actually exists in the school. Why didn’t they just give the money to the Ringwood Secondary College to extend its VET and VCAL program? Because, fundamentally, that is what is happening.

All the teachers teaching the program are not on AWAs; they are actually employed under the EB and the award that currently exists within the state of Victoria. They are currently funded under the state of Victoria. So it is an absolute furphy that this other thing had to be created because the states would not cope with it and would not cop it. This is a fully funded state government initiative. There is one general manager employed by the ATC and there are some staff who come in as service providers who do some of the extra vocational type training; I do not know their employment status. But the majority of teachers are within the Victorian government system and are providing the standard set of curricula that they would to all the other students. I do not even know if these are 13 new students or just existing students who wanted to have a different arrangement.

So why have we gone through this laborious process of setting up an ATC when we could have just funded existing institutions that are there? We have created this competitive mentality. There are so few technical teachers out there that the institutions are all now trying to poach them off each other. A lot of the courses at Box Hill TAFE and at Box Hill Senior Secondary College would be filled beyond capacity if they could get the appropriate teachers. Again, they do not exist, and we have not addressed that at all through any of this ATC establishment. They have not looked at the fact that they now have competing entities trying to vie not only for students but more importantly for staff. It just seems so ludicrous.

We have a situation of complete duplication. I would say: a complete waste of money. We are not even going to see any graduates come out of this whole process until at least 2010. Then we do not even know if there are going to be one, two or 100. The media reports into this situation cite a crisis. I will just re-echo what everybody said. We have got these wonderful edifices sitting there but there is almost nobody in them. The Australian, in an article entitled ‘New tech college is in crisis’, dated 25 April 2006, reports:

JOHN Howard’s vision for 24 federally-funded technical colleges to tackle the skills shortage has unravelled, with the Government threatening to strip some regions of the training centres promised at the last election.

The vocational colleges, which fall largely in marginal electorates held by the Coalition—

As I said, the one in my neck of the woods is in the seat of Deakin, right next door to my electorate—

from Darwin to coastal Queensland and regional Victoria, are being set up in competition with state-run TAFE colleges.

But Vocational Training and Education Minister Gary Hardgrave yesterday revealed three of the colleges could be scrapped after bidders failed to satisfy government tender requirements and another four were running behind schedule and may not open on time.

The colleges, to be established at a cost of $350 million over four years, were to offer tuition to 7500 students by 2009.

Mr Hardgrave said three colleges announced in NSW at Dubbo, Queanbeyan and Lismore/Ballina on the far north coast could be scrapped within weeks unless he received a ‘clear indication’ from the community of local support. He also accused the NSW Government of obstructing the moves to establish the colleges.

‘In the case of those communities—if they don’t take up the offer we will have to look at other regions,’ Mr Hardgrave told The Australian.

‘In the areas where the communities haven’t taken ownership of it I am going to have to look at taking them of them and giving them to other regions.

‘There were several other regions around Australia—there’s a couple it Queensland, some in South Australia and Victoria and at least one other it WA—that expressed interest.’

Australian Technical Colleges proposed for Geelong in Victoria, Illawarra in NSW, Darwin and Adelaide North may not meet their expected starting dates.

Asked yesterday if he was concerned these colleges would open on time, Mr Hardgrave replied: “Absolutely, I am worried about it. I am going to Darwin next week to give them a hurry up.

‘You’ve got to actually extract a digit and do something. There’s people fiddling around with blocks of land they want to buy. What they should be worried about is how they are going to build their affiliation with business that is going to drive this.’

But Illawarra Technical College spokesman Tony O’Connor said the region desperately needed the training opportunities and revealed he had begged the Department of Education for a meeting.

So here was this absolute tete-a-tete between the minister and others saying, ‘It’s his fault; it’s my fault’, et cetera. Spare me! Instead of actually doing something and sitting down with these individuals, the government insisted that it had to be industry led; the government insisted that it had to be a school. Funnily enough, there were a whole lot of industry people who said, ‘We don’t want to become a school, and we don’t want to have to get registered; that’s why we’d rather do it in partnership with a school. That’s why we’d rather have the TAFEs as the lead people on these groups.’ But, no, the government insisted industry had to take the lead.

In the instance of the ATC in my neck of the woods, Box Hill TAFE was involved, and they were happy to be involved. They were having virtually no involvement, although they were cited in the press release as part of the partnership and the group, because it was all about the industry focus and establishing a school. They kept saying, ‘We’re already a registered school, and we’re already doing this; why don’t we just do it at our premises?’ But, no, that would be too logical; that would be just too sensible. Instead, we had to set up somewhere else so that we could say, ‘Yes, it’s industry driven.’ But industry is driving the training.

The other thing that nobody recognises in any of this is the fact that a lot of kids are out there who want to take up apprenticeships but sometimes there are no apprenticeships to be offered. So, yes, they can do the training, but there are no businesses that are willing to put them on, and that worries me. I started work in a Victorian state government instrumentality, the great VicRoads. We used to have lots of people who were taken on as apprentices. The SEC, the railroads—all those—took on truckloads of apprentices. But what have we done? We have privatised the lot of them, and none of them take on apprentices now. None of the instrumentalities that used to exist across all the states hire people as apprentices. I used to deal with all the apprentices. They were a great bunch of people; a lot of them were old and a lot of them were young. But we do not offer those opportunities any more. So, yes, we can talk about training, but we need to ensure that businesses take on the apprentices and, more importantly, that they actually see those kids through to the end of their apprenticeships. We have the highest dropout rate in apprenticeships. A lot of the apprentices get through two years and think, ‘Four years is too hard; it’s too complicated; I’m not earning enough.’ We are doing nothing about retaining these people.

Solutions to skills shortages and the disengagement of young people from education, particularly in the middle years of schooling, depend on the capacity of society to provide a comprehensive education to all its citizens, particularly through a healthy public education system. The structure that the government has set up has created a competition policy, with TAFEs against ATCs, with industry dominating VET, and they have not provided the opportunities we need. This system will not resolve the skills crisis we have. (Time expired)

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