Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

By their standards: with the quick fix, the populist way—that is how they address problems in this country. They move in, they throw some money at them and they hope for the best. They hope that people forget after the next election that they made those commitments and those promises. When you look at the amount of money being spent on Australian technical colleges against the number of Australian students who will benefit from them, the TAFE VET system wins hands down.

If the Australian public lack confidence in the sincerity and in the ability of the Howard government to fix Australia’s skills crisis, they can hardly be blamed. Combating Australia’s skills crisis requires a government that both understands the seriousness of the problem and is committed to getting the problem fixed once and for all. It should be obvious to this government that investing in quality education and training for young Australians and combating Australia’s chronic skills shortages go hand in hand. What should also be obvious is that good policies are ones that actually get results. Pretending to fix Australia’s skills crisis is no substitute for real solutions regardless of how easily the words ‘Australian technical colleges’ may roll off our respective tongues. Labor is committed to investing in Australia’s education system so that all young Australians can have the best possible start to life. That commitment saturates every page of Labor’s education revolution policy platform.

Labor is serious about fixing Australia’s skills crisis. That is why Labor has already announced its $2.5 billion trades training centres in schools plan. This plan will provide every secondary school in Australia with between $500,000 and $1.5 million to build or upgrade trades training centres for their students. This is for every school in Australia, not just areas located in marginal seats, and that includes the kids in my electorate of Calwell, who would not see an Australian technical college within cooee of the next 100 years as far as this government is concerned. This plan provides opportunities for all schools in Australia. This initiative will not only provide local high school students in my electorate, as I said, with a much broader skills base at school; it will also provide them with real career options when it comes to trades and apprenticeships.

Labor’s trades training centres policy focuses on the long-term future of our children’s education, and provides a long-term solution designed to address Australia’s skills crisis and to reverse the damage done by 11 years of neglect under the Howard government. With census figures showing year 12 retention rates having stagnated over the last 11 years, investing in vocational education and training in high schools will encourage students to stay in school longer.

As the report Australian social trends released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics some time ago shows, completing year 12 and contemplating some form of postsecondary education has become increasingly important in today’s changing job market. According to the ABS report, the unemployment rate for students who fail to complete year 12 is over three times higher than for those with a tertiary qualification. Keeping Australian kids interested in school and helping them to complete year 12 is therefore crucial. Improving vocational education and trades training is certainly one way of doing this.

Labor also plans to introduce a job ready certificate for school students undertaking vocational education and training at school. Labor’s trades training centres in schools plan includes one day a week of on-the-job training for 20 weeks per year for VET students. The job ready certificate will be linked to a student’s training placement. This certificate will assess the job readiness of VET students and will help potential employers when it comes to assessing the level of skills and on-the-job training school leavers possess.

Addressing Australia’s worsening skills crisis is crucial in securing Australia’s future prosperity. Australia needs a government that is forward thinking and able to plan for Australia’s future. More than anything else, it needs a government that is able to produce sound policies that look to the next six years, not just the next six weeks. Providing quality education and training for young Australians and addressing Australia’s skills crisis go hand in hand.

By promoting vocational education and training in Australian high schools, Labor’s $2.5 billion trades training centres in schools plan makes a real and significant dent in Australia’s skills crisis. It broadens the range of options and opportunities made available to Australian high school students. Whilst I fully support additional funding to promote and expand vocational education and training programs in Australia, it is obvious that Australian technical colleges are much less a real solution to Australia’s worsening skills crisis and much more a quick political fix for what has been a massive policy failure on the Howard government’s part.

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