Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2006. This bill provides for additional funding over the next four years. The funding for Australian Technical Colleges is increased by $112 million to $456 million. I also rise to support the amendment that has been moved by the honourable member for Perth. In our state of New South Wales, education and vocational education are run out of one department. Previously, they were separate departments but they have been amalgamated. That is a good thing. They were amalgamated a few years ago and, ultimately, hopefully, that will result in teachers at TAFEs and schools being able to be interchanged much more readily than historically was the case.

I regret to say that we on this side of the House are often verballed about education matters. In relation to teachers, in question time today the Minister for Education, Science and Training announced that she:

... will be taking to the next state education ministers’ meeting a number of proposals relating to greater principal autonomy and ensuring that we have an element of performance based pay for teachers. We must attract, retain and reward the very best teachers. They are professionals. Let us treat them as professionals.

I personally do not have a problem with that. But the minister was also asked whether or not the Commonwealth had allocated any money to allow this to occur when she goes to the meeting of ministers. I regret to say that the minister really did not answer the question. Alternatively, by her failing to provide a figure, we can only assume that no money will be provided. I do not have difficulty in developing a bipartisan approach to the great sweep of educational issues confronting this nation. I never have. I certainly believe very much in accountability—in the accountability of educational institutions and in the results that they deliver for the students being on the public record. I think we need the best of teachers. I think teachers should be well rewarded, and I do not have difficulty with the concept of performance pay.

I know that the member for Prospect is here in the chamber, and I am sure he would agree with me that one of the great gifts of wealth that Western Sydney has is its young people. Western Sydney proudly constitutes about one-tenth of the population of Australia. It is a vast region and, I might say, a region with its differences. It is not homogenous. But we have a lot of young people, we are very proud of them and we want the best for them.

Traditionally, vocational trades have been very strong in Western Sydney. We have a vast network of TAFEs, and they have done a good job. In my own case, at Mount Druitt, not far from my electorate office, is Mount Druitt TAFE. I have forgotten the precise figure, but it has something between 7,000 and 8,000 effective full-time places. I have seen it grow from a sod-turning exercise. I think it has now had about its 10th expansion. It is doing good and growing strong. Of course, if you are a federal member out in Western Sydney, because there are so many young people, education is a big issue. It is an issue that I have been happy to pursue throughout my parliamentary career to date. I should have mentioned that, by the year 2016, more than half of Sydney’s population will be located in Western Sydney.

In Western Sydney, with one-tenth of the population of Australia, we have one of these colleges. Like my colleagues on this side of the House, I am not convinced that this is the best way to address vocational education, but the government has moved in this direction. How good is it?

I can state for the record that there is a college. There was an original proposal which, unhappily in my view, was withdrawn, but now the new ATC will be located at Rouse Hill. I do appreciate that in different parts of Australia people have to travel a long way to access services. But for the whole of Western Sydney to try and access a service being provided at Rouse Hill is indeed quite a challenge. If people are located in Liverpool, Cabramatta, the Blue Mountains or Campbelltown, trying to travel across Western Sydney to Rouse Hill, which is not centred at any particular transport node, does present difficulties.

In the newspaper there has been some criticism that you have 25 places and only 20 are filled. I am happy to accept the new principal’s word that indeed 25 places in this Western Sydney ATC will be filled. But, Mr Speaker, I am sure you would agree with me that providing 25 places at the Rouse Hill ATC to service the whole of Western Sydney is not exactly going to cause a revolution in the provision of vocational training for young people in Western Sydney. I am not saying that it is not welcome, but it would require real creative genius to parlay 25 places as some sort of vocational education revolution in Western Sydney. I certainly hold that view.

I probably should not go into the details of the original—and I think very innovative—proposal that was submitted by the Parramatta diocese and was initially successful. It was going to have three locations. It was going to utilise existing facilities and portable facilities, and that would have meant that students could more than readily access them. It was not going to be just a very limited skill area that they were hoping to provide for students; it was a very exciting proposal involving quite a number of different master associations—master builders, plumbers, et cetera. Yes, it was having difficulties, but it had been thoroughly thought through. Proposals and agreements were being made to ensure that it had proper state approval. Unlike many of my colleagues, I would have probably preferred that that original proposal was given more time to come to fruition, because I think that, in the short to medium term, it would have had greater impact.

Debate interrupted.

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