Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Industrial Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2006 and the amendment moved by the shadow minister for education and training. I concur with the member for Canberra that much of the motivation of the government in relation to this matter has been driven by an ideological blindness—its hatred of collective agreements and unions. That was clear from day 1, when it was a condition of the establishment of colleges that they offer Australian workplace agreements. Never mind the title of the Work Choices legislation introduced by the government. In relation to this matter, in an area of the education and training portfolio, the government is using taxpayers’ money to force people onto particular industrial instruments whether they want to be part of that or not. There is no choice at all. I have said that time and time again.

This is, of course, the third opportunity I have had to speak about the Australian technical colleges proposition. It is the second amendment to the original bill that was moved in this place in 2005. It arose from policy on the run by the Prime Minister during the 2004 election when, out of the blue, and probably written on the back of a beer coaster, the Prime Minister put a proposition together which had no comprehensive detail whatsoever. It was just a suggestion so that there could be a slogan or a media release for the election that was held in late 2004.

Notwithstanding the way in which the government has chosen to go about introducing Australian technical colleges, I can assure the government and every member here that I will do everything I can to ensure that the Sunshine Australian Technical College will be a success. Whilst I do not accept the premise upon which it has been established, and I do not accept the way in which the government has decided to introduce pernicious provisions that force employees—teachers and other ancillary staff—to be on individual contracts, I want to see more young people in western Melbourne given the opportunity to acquire the skills they need to maintain employment for their working lives. So I will do everything I can to ensure that does occur.

As I indicated yesterday to Andrew Wilkinson, the appointed chief executive officer and principal of the Sunshine college—a fledgling college but one that has at least commenced—I want to visit him and speak with him about what we can do to increase the number of students who are there. At the moment, there is a very small cohort of students; it is nowhere near the target of 300 that the Prime Minister and the former Minister for Vocational and Technical Education indicated in their speeches. But if any young person in western Melbourne can successfully finish an accredited course and improve their opportunities for work, I will certainly support that.

It is not surprising to me that the government has paid lip-service to this area. As I said earlier, it started with a media release during an election campaign. From that point on, there was an effort by the government to backfill and to develop some plan around that media release. It was left to the former Minister for Vocational and Technical Education to explain why the government had not properly considered the way in which this should be done. Indeed, the last opportunity the former minister had to speak as a minister in this place was when he introduced this bill, which will amend the substantive legislation that was introduced and passed in 2005. One would have to ask: if this policy is as successful as government members claim, why is it that the Prime Minister chose to sack that minister? Why is it that the member for Moreton now finds himself on the back bench after overseeing this area of policy? Why was he not even afforded the opportunity to be a quasi-minister—one of those assistant minister positions that have been given to the members for Parkes and Sturt? The member for Moreton has been sacked from the front bench halfway through the process of developing the Australian technical colleges. We have to conclude either that the Prime Minister and the government consider this area of policy an abject failure and they are embarrassed about failing to properly construct these colleges or that the former minister was asked to resign for other reasons—perhaps so that we would be able to see the theatrical genius of the member for Wentworth.

The point is this: the former minister was to oversee the 24 colleges announced by the Prime Minister during the election in 2004, he introduced the bill in 2005, he introduced an amendment in 2006, and he introduced this amendment to the substantive legislation on 7 December last year—the last day of sitting last year. Between his introducing this bill into this place and our debating it today, the former minister has been dismissed by the Prime Minister of this country. We have to wonder why that occurred. I have to say: I do not know what is in the head of the Prime Minister with respect to why he dismissed the former minister, but I can understand some disquiet amongst government members about the failure of the Australian technical colleges insofar as their being developed and being on-stream for young people across this nation.

We heard last year that there was a so-called ATC established in Gladstone which had one student being trained—and the government had the cheek to call that a college. I would not call that a college. I would say good luck to the one student who was being taught and trained, if that were the case, but clearly this is an example of failure by this government to fulfil the commitments that were uttered by the Prime Minister during the 2004 election. The government has failed to fulfil those.

Whilst there might well be 16 of the 24 Australian technical colleges commencing in some way, shape or form by the end of this year, that is hardly sufficient for those areas that are crying out for these types of resources. There are young people across the nation in regional and rural Australia, and in the area that I represent in western Melbourne, who need to acquire skills. We know the government concede there is a skills shortage. They choose not to blame themselves; it is always somebody else’s fault. But there seems to be a consensus that this country has a skills shortage and the government seek to boast that they might at some point, by the end of this year, have 16 of 24 colleges commencing. I do not think that is good enough. If we do have a crisis, and I think it is fair to say that we do have a crisis in the area of skills shortages in workplaces across this country, then the government must attend to that crisis in a much more expeditious manner than the way in which they have treated this area.

That is one of the problems Labor has with this. Clearly, there has been an attempt to entwine the need to spend money in this area—technical learning and the technical skills that are required—with the government’s pursuit of individual contracts. As the member for Canberra indicated, that has probably caused some delay because there would be some people who would not join a consortia that would force employees to sign individual contracts. That might be one of the reasons. The other main reason for the failure by the government to get these 24 colleges up quickly enough is that it has not sincerely concerned itself with the plight of young Australians and their needs in the area of skills.

The government has sacked the minister who was responsible for this area and replaced him with a new minister. Whilst I feel for the member for Morton—because I cannot see, on the face of it, why he was worse than many others in discharging his duties—I hope the new minister listens to the concerns that we have in this place and acts to respond to the problems that we have highlighted—in particular, in the case of Sunshine Australian Technical College, providing every resource to that college and to the partners that are involved in that project to accelerate the number of places that are available for young people in western Melbourne as quickly as possible. No doubt members that represent constituents wherever these colleges are located would feel the same as I do, because it is not good enough for the government to talk about a target of 300 young people to be trained in a college and then for the member of the particular area to find that the target seems to be a long way off and that there is no guarantee that the target will be fulfilled.

So there needs to be more assistance provided to the people in these colleges. I am not in any way pointing the finger at the people who are attempting to establish this at the college level. I am sure many of them are very good education providers, with a history of teaching. I wish them well but I think the government has to now match its rhetoric about attending to the skills crisis in this country and to match its rhetoric about its concerns for the young people and their needs to be properly skilled so that they can be gainfully employed through their entire working lives. These are the things that the government needs to do, and they have not satisfied me or the other members on this side.

The purpose of this bill is to provide for an additional $112 million, between the years of 2005 and 2009, for the establishment and operation of the ATCs—in other words, to add an extra $112 million to the original budget. Agreements have been signed, as I understand it, for establishing 21 of the 24 colleges that were proposed. I understand that five commenced last year and 16 will be in operation by the end of 2007. What I need to know and what I am sure other members would like to know is what ‘in operation’ means. Is it like the case of Gladstone, where we are talking about one student in a college, or is it about more than one?

I think it is probably fair for the government to start giving us the numbers of students that are being placed into these colleges. The questions that I have for the new Minister for Vocational and Further Education are: what is the target enrolment for the Sunshine Australian Technical College; how was this target determined; how many students have actually enrolled this year; how many teachers have been employed at the Sunshine Australian Technical College; how many of those teachers have been employed using Australian workplace agreements; what is the total cost of running the Sunshine Australian Technical College; what, if any, new facilities have been constructed or are planned to be reconstructed on the Sunshine ATC site; and, what is the cost and/or projected cost of these facilities?

Those are some of the questions that I will be placing on the Notice Paper and directing to the minister. I would be much happier if he were able to respond to me in summing up the legislation. I do not hold out much hope of that happening but I will certainly formally direct those questions about my concerns about the Sunshine Australian Technical College to the minister.

This has been a disaster from the beginning. I think the intent in terms of getting young people into the colleges is good; however, it was conceived in a very rash manner. It was conceived in order to provide for an election campaign media release that would create a spin to show the Howard government concerning itself with people needing technical skills. Then it had a little bit of a twist to it because it also coercively required employees to be forced onto Australian workplace agreements. Those things have led to a failure to fulfil the demands that are out there.

As I said, if taxpayers’ dollars are going to be spent looking after young people in my electorate, I will do everything I can to assist. I was there on 1 March 2005 when the then minister came to my electorate to announce the college. I was not notified—I have to make that clear—but I did find out that the minister was coming to the electorate of Gorton, I was in attendance, I spoke to the minister at that time and I said I would assist and I would be constructive. I will continue to be so on the ground, but I will need to see that the government is fair dinkum about these colleges and that it really will be looking to increase the amount of students that will be trained at the Sunshine Technical College before I can start to convince others that this government has a great concern about our young people and their needs.

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