Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will just make a few comments about some points the member for Cowper made about the sky falling in, as the opposition has supposedly been saying. I would like to know if the member for Cowper would like to speak to some of the young people in my electorate who are unemployed. With a youth unemployment rate of over 25 per cent in my electorate, I have mums and dads coming into my electorate office every day to ask if I can assist their children to access apprenticeships. I tell them that this government’s only way of dealing with skilling the Australian workforce is to bring in apprentices from countries like India, Indonesia and China and to train them up under apprenticeship visas. I would like the member for Cowper to tell those people how rosy the sky is when kids in my electorate are looking for apprenticeships and cannot find one.

As I said, the only solution this government has is to bring in apprentices from overseas on apprenticeship visas and to train them up here in this country—certainly on lower wages than what an apprentice would get if they were employed here. Of course, one of the conditions of those visas is to sign a contract of employment, an AWA. If you do not sign that employment contract, you do not get the visa. So do you think those people are going to sign the contract? They will all sign the contract, regardless of what the conditions are. That goes to the heart of this government’s policy and the sole purpose of not skilling people. The sole purpose of bringing these apprentices over is to drive wages down. That is the only reason. That is the reason they brought in Work Choices, and that is the reason they are bringing in overseas workers: to drive wages down and to ensure that conditions for the working people here in this country are far lower than they have ever been at any time in this great country of ours—where we once had a proud record and we were very proud of paying a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.

It is a very sad day for Australian democracy when we see the results of a whole decade of budget cuts, underinvestment and reliance on a tertiary education system where degrees cost $200,000 and people who pay up front get priority at university. This is what this government have done. They have ignored their responsibility for planning and managing the national workforce, and they have spent 10 years undermining Australia’s education and skills outcomes. The government take 20 minutes of everybody’s time, as they did the other day, to get up and state: ‘We’re going to put in $800 million to help people get a year 12 equivalency certificate. Aren’t we a great nation-building government?’ The government have had 10 whole years, an entire Public Service at their disposal and all the think tanks under the sun, and all they can come up with is a proposal to help middle-aged people in employment to revisit high school.

Five billion dollars has been taken out of universities since the government were elected. And they want to talk to us about higher education and training. There was also $250 million cut from TAFE in the first two budgets of this government. The Howard government have been in power for the last 10 years, and for 10 whole years they have torn down TAFE. TAFE was the skilling school of our nation. The government have not given two hoots about skilling. All of a sudden, they are doing a backflip and showing some sort of concern. But how do the government expect Australian industry to cope when they rip money out of the higher education system, which includes TAFE training for trades and skills? They ripped $250 million from TAFE in their first two budgets, not forgetting the $5 billion they have ripped from universities. How does the government expect Australia to make use of the opportunities we currently enjoy, such as we do, and make preparation for an increasingly dependent population over the decades to come?

Here is a small chronology of the government’s record since it has been in power. I have already mentioned the $250 million that was cut from TAFE in the first two budgets and the $5 billion cut from universities over the last 10 years. The first cuts that I mentioned were in 1996-97. In 1998-2000 there was a Commonwealth funding freeze. In 2001-03 the limited growth funding was restored very slightly, but the states were required to match $460 million over three years. In 2004 there was a rollover of the 2003 funding, with no indexation of the 2003 growth funds. In 2005 the Australian National Training Authority was abolished. This was the authority that had the responsibility for a centralised national training system and it was the advisory body to the government on training. It was a shame that it was abolished. How can this government talk about training when that is its record for the last 10 years? All we have seen is slashing and cutting. How can the Australian public trust this government on skills when it has an abysmal record like that?

The other day the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry were kind enough to slip me, in my electorate, one of their most recent newsletters, in which they identified their members’ expectations and concerns. There was a survey of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry members. Forty-five per cent of those surveyed expected national economic conditions were deteriorating. Sixty-one per cent expected movement in prices—that is, inflation, higher prices. Eighty per cent expected interest rates to rise again somewhere in the very near future. The underlying cause of these perspectives within the community, the reasons for such bleak forecasts regarding costs and of course the cost of money, is the upward pressure created by this government’s obsessiveness with their out-of-date approach to national government.

Formulating and implementing good policy for this country is every government’s duty, regardless of what side of the fence they are on, whether they are a Labor government or a Liberal government. That is the No. 1 duty of any government. We have not seen this. We have not seen good implementation or good policy in the skills area. We have seen neglect for 10 whole years of this government. All we have seen is a denial and nothing more.

The member for Cowper earlier spoke about apprenticeships, and I would like to make some points on apprenticeships as well. The government’s New Apprenticeships scheme has been in operation now for some time. The government count it as one of their greatest successes, but many would argue that it has failed young Australians and failed our workforce requirements. The National Centre for Vocational Education Research report Australian qualifications framework lower-level qualifications: pathways to where for young people? shows that only 33 per cent of people enrolled in a certificate I qualification and 43 per cent of people enrolled in a certificate II qualification complete their courses. Of the few who do complete, over a third of participants said they saw no real job related benefits in the training they received.

This government pays out over $76 million to employers as incentives to take on certificate II trainees, including $18 million for retail courses and $6 million for hospitality. Research shows young people in these courses have been used as cheap labour and have not been given the skills they need for future full-time employment. It may well be that the government has identified a stale smell coming from the New Apprenticeships scheme, as it has reportedly started spending $24 million on giving it a facelift, renaming it Australian Apprenticeships—that is according to an article in the Adelaide Advertiser.

Labour shortages and businesses having to import tradesmen from interstate at top dollar just to keep the companies’ production ticking over is not going to help to keep prices low. Fobbing off opportunity after opportunity for developing our own Australian-made energy industries is not balanced by subsidising a few thousand out-of-date LPG kits. Bringing in wave after wave of overseas workers is in itself not the primary solution to Australia’s workforce problems. I spoke earlier about apprenticeship visas. We also see 457 visas, under which we are bringing in people on lower conditions and less pay. The only objective of this particular policy is to drive down wages. Fear not, that is the only objective of this policy. As soon as we see a downturn in the economy, there will be a definite drop in wages. This is all part of the government’s scheme to ensure that wages will remain at levels lower than what they currently are.

Let us take a look at health for instance, particularly at GPs. Everyone knows that we have national shortages of GPs in hospitals and in the community, but not everyone knows that the government’s own bureaucratic bungling has caused a queue of 1,200 doctors waiting for Medicare provider numbers. That is 1,200 doctors who do not have Medicare provider numbers and cannot start up waiting in a queue. That is 1,200 doctors on the bench itching to get into the game, frustrated by this government, when it is plain to see we are only fielding half a team. In response to this bottleneck, which is probably quite representative of much of Australia’s trade orientated infrastructure, the government again simply diverts its eyes to, in this case, the 457 visas.

The number of doctors recruited from overseas last year included 980 GPs, virtually 1,000 for the year. The overall number has risen in the last 10 years by some 30-plus per cent. Now some 25 per cent of the medical workforce comprises doctors trained overseas. But what does this government do? It has slashed university funding by $5 billion since it has been in. The Australian Medical Association has found goodness-knows-how-many doctors and surgeons brought in from overseas and working in our hospitals without—believe it or not—even having had their competencies checked—and we hear stories every day. Still shortages remain and this government’s failure to adequately plan, invest in and support its own health industry remains evident. It is similarly evident in the industries and professions. It does not stop there by a long shot.

The government’s 20-minute plan—as we saw the other day—for tackling the skills crisis also consists of vouchers to assist one in 10—that is right, only one in 10—of the people it has turned away from TAFE over the last 10 years. We all know that 300,000 people have been turned away from TAFE. As I said earlier, TAFE was the skilling school of our nation and the place where people did learn trades, and this is the best that the Howard government can do: turn away 300,000 people from TAFE and then give one in 10 the opportunity for a callback however many years later—a bit of tokenism, I say.

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