Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would very much like to speak on this ministerial statement, because the $837 million Skills for the Future package will give Australians the opportunity to gain new work skills and develop a far more entrepreneurial and forward-looking workforce. Gone are the days when an individual could complete a trade after leaving school and safely stay in that line of work through the whole of their working life. These days people know that they need to continuously upgrade their work skills to suit the workplace, their life situations and the needs of their families.

Take, for example, the case of electronics. Electronics in their modern form probably have not been with us for more than 30 years. If we continued to study electronics at the level that they were at 30 years ago, how would we be today with broadband, the internet, 3G and all those sorts of things? Obviously the people in those fields have to upgrade their skills. Think of the old PMG techs—the ones who stayed on. If they wanted to be part of the new generation they had to upgrade their skills—and so it will be in many occupations in years to come. So it is not simply, as some of the opposition have suggested, a matter of creating new classes at TAFE; it is a matter of targeting the areas where new skills are going to be needed.

The government’s Skills for the Future package focuses on improving the basic skills of Australians, and I am pleased to say it will be especially helpful to adults to improve their literacy and numeracy skills as well. That is another problem. We find that, as the world becomes more technical and more advanced in the presentation of its material, literacy and numeracy become even more important. The package also focuses on trade apprenticeships, which means that workers looking to take up midcareer apprenticeships will be eligible for financial assistance, while apprentices in traditional trades can receive the necessary support to take them one further step in establishing and running their own businesses.

The package also makes a substantial new investment in Australia’s future engineering skills by funding more university places and offering extra employer incentives so that Australians can gain higher levels of technical skills, right up to diploma and advanced diploma levels. From 1 January next year, people aged 25 and over who have not completed year 12 or an equivalent qualification will be eligible for vouchers of up to $3,000 to help with the cost of study to year 12 or an equivalent level, or for courses of a vocational and technical nature to a certificate II level. Up to 30,000 of these vouchers will be available each year, and they can be used at public, private or community training provider establishments.

From the second half of next year there will be financial support for people who are part-way through their working lives and who want to take up an apprenticeship in an occupation of high demand—and we all know about this great shortage of skilled labour, especially along the Queensland and New South Wales coastline. A lot of young people today are seduced by the extraordinarily well paid jobs that have developed in the coalfields. While I do not for a minute make any disparaging remarks about their hard work—they are certainly earning tremendous money—I wonder what happens at the end of this cycle and whether some of them will have qualifications when they come back into the coastal workforce again.

Many of the adults who would be prepared to fill those gaps find it difficult to go into an apprenticeship because they have family commitments. They are paying off a house, they are paying off a car and they have kids at school, and an apprenticeship wage just will not keep them. So under this new scheme they will be able to be subsidised with a weekly payment of $150 in their first year of an apprenticeship and $100 per week in the second year. I think that will be very handy for people. A lot of people come into my office with tremendous acquired skills but without qualifications or they have been overseas and their qualification is not accepted in Australia. I think this part of the scheme will really help those people.

I think this presents a fantastic opportunity for people who may already be on a work site, on a mining site, in a labouring role or in some other position and who want to take up the new challenge of having a profession. From 1 January 2008, the government will provide an extra 500 Commonwealth supported engineering places at universities to make up for a projected shortfall in engineering graduates. Of course, this is another problem. The problem we have experienced with doctors, dentists and some sections of teaching, of getting people to go into country areas, is now swinging over on to engineers and so extra Commonwealth places supporting engineering will be most welcome.

This is a comprehensive package which will help existing workers upgrade their skills while offering a firm foundation for those needing to consolidate their basic education qualifications. The initiative also ties in neatly with the government’s existing plan for Australian technical colleges. My electorate is fortunate in having one of the Australian technical colleges. It is located at Gladstone. The Gladstone Australian Technical College is being run by a consortium made up of Gladstone Area Group Apprentice Ltd, the Gladstone Engineering Alliance, Commerce Queensland, Eagle Crane and Rigging and the Central Queensland Ports Authority. The college opened its doors in January and operates out of five state schools—Gladstone, Toolooa, Tannum, Moura and Biloela high schools and two non-government schools, Chanel College and St Stephen’s Lutheran College.

The community partnerships which have been forged in Gladstone between business, training and education and local government put the city and the wider region in a very good position to take full advantage of the framework that is offered under the ATC initiative. This particular college was targeted by the opposition this year for having only one student enrolled. I am happy to report that Gladstone’s enrolment currently stands at 29. The college aims to have 65 local students on its books in the metal and engineering trades, the automotive trades and electrotechnology. By 2009, it is hoped the enrolments will be at the 135 mark and the syllabus will be expanded to include building, construction, mining and process plant operations.

I think this should be seen against the backdrop of what is already happening in Gladstone. It was probably a bit harder to get an ATC started in Gladstone because it in a way had become the forerunner of the school to work transition. Arguably the Toolooa State High School in Gladstone was the first that took up the idea of school to work transition. Even before the official government framework had been put together, they had started a model. They give their classes in the lecture theatres of the NRG powerhouse, where the young people work in an industrial environment. They do three or four academic subjects and then for two years—years 11 and 12—they also do their trade subjects. But this is not just theory in school; it is in a real, live workplace.

A number of students last year, I think it was 90 per cent, had their apprenticeships ready when they came out of that course. About 45 per cent of the year 11s, 18 months out from finishing school, already had their apprenticeships teed up. That is a marvellous result.

Overlaying that, we will have the formal ATC model. There is yet another model at Gladstone, at Tannum Sands State High School—one of my favourites. This school tried unsuccessfully under the old ANTA arrangements to get a business-type college associated with the school for years 11 and 12. The idea of that was to again have the students’ work in the Boyne smelter, in a proper work environment, where they would see real, live work on a day-to-day basis. On top of that, it was hoped to get the kids to levels II and III of their certificates in both computer science and business studies. You can imagine someone coming out with a year 12 certificate, a certificate in computer science and another certificate in office management; they are a long way along the way. And for them to be able to say to an employer, ‘I have had some real, live training in a workplace,’ is even better. That is yet another one in the Gladstone area.

Between 1996 and 2006 there has been an increase of 104 per cent in the number of apprentices in Hinkler; it has more than doubled. This gives the lie to the remarks of some in the opposition who are trying to denigrate the traineeships. I am not saying traineeships are the same academic or skills level as a full four- or three-year apprenticeship. No-one has ever said that. But the traineeship is pitched to the level of expertise required for a particular trade, and that is important.

In Hinkler, 138 per cent of the increase in the number of apprenticeships has been completed in certificates III and IV—in other words, in the top end of the skills—but if what the opposition said was correct, you would have expected them at the lower level. That has not been the case. I suspect what is happening in Hinkler would be reflected in other seats around us, such as Capricornia, Wide Bay, Dawson, Herbert and the like.

Another coalition initiative which complements this is the Tools for Your Trade program, which provides $800 for tool kits for Australian apprentices who commenced in registered skills shortage trades from 1 July 2005. As of 18 September this year, there were 989 apprentices in Hinkler who were eligible for these tool kits. There is near enough to 1,000 kids with tool kits as well.

My colleague the member for Cowper made an interesting point when he spoke on this matter. He said, ‘The opposition has never had to worry about skills shortage because of its own inability to create jobs’—a bit harsh, but if the cap fits. As I said, this is no longer the case in Gladstone or the wider Central Queensland region.

This is also reflected in the fact that in June 2001 there were 13,800 unemployed people in the Central Queensland region—that is, Mackay, Fitzroy and the central west. I am proud to say that, five years on, that 13,800 has been reduced to 5,500; more than halved. I am also pleased to say that the number of people employed has increased from 143,000 to 194,000; that is by over 50,000. If you divide that by five, you find that is about a 35 per cent increase overall, about seven per cent per year.

In Gladstone—where I also monitor the Centrelink figures very closely, because they represent real live flesh and blood people who need assistance from government—in the 10 years we have been in government the figure has dropped from 1,838 to 805, so more than half. You can see from that that these new initiatives—which we put in place in the earlier part of our term of government and which we have in place for the continuing term of the government—have placed the people of Central Queensland in a very advantageous position.

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