Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I certainly welcome the comments by the member for Macquarie, a very fine member for his local area and a very keen supporter of universities. I also welcome the measures contained in the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (2007 Measures No. 1) Bill 2007 to make the academic sector more diverse and more responsive to the needs of the nation. We live in a changing world, a world that is changing more rapidly than ever before. International travel is becoming quicker and easier. International communication is becoming almost instantaneous and very cheap. It is important that we innovate. We have to innovate to stay still in this changing world, and we have to innovate efficiently and effectively to get ahead. If Australia is going to get ahead, we have to be at the forefront of innovation in this very competitive world.

In the broader sense, Work Choices is very much part of that innovation. In an age of global markets, a relatively isolated nation such as Australia—with some 20 million people—cannot afford to have six separate industrial relations systems. To compete in the global market we have to be absolutely efficient. To compete in the global market we have to be trying harder every year. The coalition has been successful in this global market, along with all the businesses and individuals who work hard in this country. We have created two million jobs since 1996. We have got unemployment to the lowest rate in 30 years. Real wages have gone up by 19 per cent in the term of this government. It has not happened by accident. The economy does not run itself, as the members opposite would try to make us think. It requires careful and responsible management. You cannot just sit back and enjoy the reforms that have been put in place, as the members opposite think you can. You have to reform and reform again. Work Choices is very much part of that process. It is part of that evolution.

The members opposite want to hand back power to the unions. They want to do the dreaded roll-back. They want to roll back our industrial relations system. They want to take our economic development backwards. We see innovation in our universities and innovation in business, both large and small. But in industrial relations, one of the most powerful drivers of growth in this country, what are we going to do? According to Labor, we are going to take it backwards. Apparently, the rest of the country can charge forward, but with regard to the industrial relations agenda we can throw the economy into reverse, we can throw the system into reverse, and we can become less efficient. Somehow, through some magic pudding ALP formula, the economy is going to continue to grow, wages are going to continue to grow and the world is going to be rosy. It just does not happen that way.

It is clear to all except members of the ALP that if you reverse the reforms of Work Choices you are going to make our labour system less efficient. If you make our labour system less efficient at a time when the economy is running at high speed and has to be carefully managed, you are going to put upward pressure on inflation. If you put upward pressure on inflation, you are going to put upward pressure on interest rates.

There is no magic solution to this. The ALP cannot hand control back to the unions and just expect the economy to run on its own. The ALP cannot hand control back to the unions and expect inflation to remain low and job creation to continue. If they continue with this proposal they will be effectively trying to force interest rates up from opposition. We know how good they are at forcing interest rates up in government, but in this case they are going to force interest rates up from opposition. The days are gone when unions could have a stranglehold on work sites. We need a cooperative approach between workers and employers. We need to work together to continue to drive growth in this country.

This bill recognises the importance of education in driving this country forward, just as industrial relations reform has an important role in driving this country forward. This bill will help to ensure that our education system becomes more responsive to the needs of the nation and more responsive to the needs of users of research, creating high-quality research. This bill will work to continue this nation’s success story, this nation’s pursuit of a more skilled economy, a more educated workforce and a more effective economy.

Look at Labor’s history in relation to skills. In my electorate it was very difficult to get an apprenticeship when this government came to power in 1996. There were very few apprentices. Since Labor’s time the number of apprentices has tripled. We have seen a focus not only on higher education but also on the importance of trade training. This government has established Australian technical colleges. They are an innovative and new way to meet our trade skill needs. They are an innovative and new way to recognise the talents of our young people who may not be great academics but are very skilled craftsmen. It offers them an opportunity to excel in the school environment. It offers them an opportunity to excel amongst their peers and encourages them to stay on in the school system rather than become disenchanted and leave at year 10. It offers the opportunity for a far more skilled and far more highly developed workforce, which is what this country needs.

The measures introduced in the Skills for the Future package will help to turn out far more skilled people right across the age cohort, in a range of fields. Skills for the Future acknowledges the need for engineers. Skills for the Future acknowledges the need to offer people mature age apprenticeship training, removing barriers for some of our older workers who might have missed the opportunity for an apprenticeship when they were young. It gives them the opportunity now to go into a trade training environment, learn some new skills and build on the skill base that they have already acquired in the workforce. I think that is a tremendous initiative: upskilling mature age apprentices.

I know that many employers in my electorate have welcomed this idea. They say, ‘We welcome the opportunity to work with some of our younger apprentices, but we would also welcome the opportunity to have more people in training in the workplace who have the values of mature age workers.’ So it is a great measure. It also provides the opportunity to upskill existing tradesmen, to give them the skills to operate businesses, to provide the goods and services that the economy needs. It encourages them to have the sorts of skills that will enable them to run an efficient and effective business. Whilst tradesmen are often very skilled in the trade in which they specialise, they do not necessarily have the trade skills to run a business. I think that is important.

The Skills for the Future package also offers a very important opportunity for some people, at a later stage in life, to take that first step on the road to education by improving some of their basic skills, such as literacy. It aims to get them back into education and back into the process of beginning to improve their skill base. Who knows where that will take a lot of people? I have spoken to a range of people in my electorate who lacked the skills in younger life and have taken that step to come back into very basic education training. They have said to me that it is a very rewarding experience. Skills for the Future greatly expands the sorts of programs that are currently in place. It greatly increases the amount of opportunity for older people to take that first tentative step back into formal education. It is about encouraging people to upskill.

This bill encourages our university sector to become more responsive to the nation’s needs. It encourages them to offer the sorts of courses that are going to be in demand. It will allow them to undertake the sort of research that will be in demand in very specialised fields. It acknowledges the necessity to have very specialised institutions, and there are a range of areas which would benefit greatly from further intense study such as climate change, which has become an area of great focus at a national and international level. There is a huge demand for specialists in these fields. The opportunity to establish educational institutions that specialise in fields that are in great demand and in very narrow specialties as opposed to being more generalist—fields such as climate change, alternative energy, efficient transport systems, energy efficient cars, reducing carbon emissions, carbon sequestration and the like—is something that we should welcome.

With regard to the research quality framework, it is very important that we have an output with regard to research which is of the highest quality. The research quality framework focuses on that, ensuring that we get the sorts of quality research outcomes that are going to drive this nation further and faster. I think it is also important that this research be disseminated.

Recently, I was chair of the education inquiry into teacher training. One of the things that was proposed in that inquiry was to look at a feasibility study, as recommended by Teaching Australia, into having a clearing house for the dissemination of education research. It is one thing to have high-quality research—it is very important to have high-quality research—but it is also important to get that research out to users so that people can see the available research, benefit from it and respond to it perhaps in their work practices. The research quality framework is very important in ensuring that we are conducting the highest quality research to drive this country forward.

I want to reflect briefly on the importance of regional universities. I am very fortunate that in my electorate we have a campus of the Southern Cross University located in Coffs Harbour. The importance of a regional university cannot be underestimated—not only doing research in a regional area but offering education possibilities in a regional area. So we have got the opportunity for young people in Coffs Harbour to go to school, do their university training and, by virtue of a widening of the employment base and the types of jobs that are being generated by the university, to find full-time employment in that city. We have got a regional city where there is a career path from kindergarten and primary school through to tertiary education—something that 30 or 40 years ago just did not happen in regional centres. It is a great move by the government to be locating universities in regional centres and providing opportunities for our students in regional areas to study at home without having to travel long distances to major campuses in metropolitan areas.

These types of establishments also provide a huge source of employment. They provide a range of jobs not only in the academic fields but in all the support roles of such an institution. They provide a critical mass for our regional centres and a very solid long-term employment base, and I know that the presence of Southern Cross University in Coffs Harbour is very much welcomed by the people.

This government supports regional universities through additional funding by providing a loading. It recognises that, despite the benefits of a university in a regional area, there are costs in providing relatively small campuses in isolated locations. The government funds those through loadings on the fees, funding given to regional universities and through the VSU funds. Southern Cross University Coffs campus recently received a million dollars to build a sporting facility, which is very much welcomed by the students and people of Coffs Harbour.

In conclusion, I want to acknowledge the presence of Private Ko in the gallery today. He is a member of the Australian Defence Force. He is on the Australian Parliamentary Defence Program. He is a very astute young member of our military forces, and we welcome the opportunity to share our experiences in this House with members of the Defence Force. I welcome Private Ko with us here in parliament for the week and I wish him well. I commend the bill to the house.

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