Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Once again we are in this place with a bill before us that seeks to extend the funding directed towards the government’s problematic Australian technical colleges program. I say ‘once again’ because we have been down this path before of having to extend the funds directed to this government’s system of technical colleges. While Labor will not be opposing the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2007, we have moved a second reading amendment which contains an extensive and damning critique of the Howard government’s handling of vocational education and training over the past 11 years.

Those familiar with the south-west of Sydney—the Macarthur region, where I come from, which takes in the seat of Werriwa—would understand the importance that parents place on having access to employment opportunities for their kids and, in particular, the abilities and opportunities for their kids to pursue trades. Two of our kids are tradespeople—I am very fortunate; one is an electrician and one is a carpenter—so I know what parents think of their children having the opportunity to undertake trade based education. The concerns I had for my own kids about apprenticeships and apprenticeship training and vocational education are precisely the concerns I know people in the south-west of Sydney have when they look at training opportunities for their kids and, further down the track, career opportunities in chosen trades. Parents always want better opportunities for their children than they themselves had. That is why the Prime Minister’s unfair dismissal laws—Work Choices in particular—have resonated to the extent that they have within communities. That is certainly so in my community in south-western Sydney, and I know from the industrial relations task force what resonates in various electorates throughout this country. People are concerned about the impact that these laws are likely to have on their children and their children’s opportunities. Before an objection is taken on me straying from this bill, it is fair to say that my views on Work Choices are well known, so I will not proceed with that any further.

In order for parents to be comfortable in the knowledge that their children will have greater and better opportunities to pursue their dreams than they did, most parents realise that at the base is the importance of having a good and fundamentally sound education. While universities and academic pursuits are very important to many, they will not be suitable for all, and that is why the issue of vocational education, trade based education, takes on even greater importance. The importance of trade training is why Labor has announced a range of policies to address skills shortages and trade training into the future. I will outline some of those policies later.

It is timely that I make this contribution in the debate today as it was only Monday last that I received a response to one of two questions that I placed on the Notice Paper to the Minister for Vocational and Further Education about the proposed Western Sydney technical college. The first related to the number of students from various parts of the greater Campbelltown and Liverpool areas that were enrolled in the original Australian Technical College Western Sydney. The second was about the basis of the selection of Penrith as the location of the second Western Sydney technical college, which is what this bill seeks to provide funds for. To date, I have not received a response to the first question—although I suspect I already know the answer. I have received a response to the second question. The response, as is the case with most answers from this government, it is fair to say, I found less than revealing and certainly less than satisfying.

Disappointingly, it came as no surprise to me when it was announced in the budget in May this year that the Western Sydney technical college would be located in the electorate of Lindsay, based in Penrith. It came as no surprise because Lindsay fits the majority of the criteria for the technical colleges and their locations—that is, it is a marginal coalition seat. The fact about the Australian technical colleges that does not appear on the advertisements that are now starting to flood our televisions, for the consumption of all Australians, is that 90 per cent of the colleges are to be located in either a coalition seat or a marginal seat. I suppose it is a no-brainer with Lindsay, which, being a coalition held marginal seat, has a tick in both boxes. When asked about the reasons for locating the technical college in Lindsay, the minister was not so bold as to admit that it was a coalition held marginal seat and that that is the reason it got the nod. The minister said this: 

The area of Greater Penrith was selected for a second Sydney Australian Technical College as it is a region that has demonstrated significant skills needs, a high youth population and a significant industry base.

At face value, that seems a quite reasonable response and basis on which to make a decision on where to locate an educational facility. But I got to wondering: how does that stack up when compared to other areas in Western Sydney? Accordingly, I thought it appropriate that we compare Lindsay’s credentials to those of other areas of Sydney, such as south-west Sydney, to be sure that this was not just an issue of pork-barrelling, that the government did not seek to achieve a political advantage by spending multiple millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money in another marginal seat.

When we consider the skill needs of a region, I do not believe that Lindsay has any greater demands than other parts of Western Sydney. At the moment, we find ourselves in an economic position which has resulted from a skills shortage. As a result, those with skills and experience are generally able to find work in their chosen field. The skills shortage was certainly affected by the government’s decision some time ago to cut funding to TAFE colleges and vocational education. I will come back to that.

The government’s figures estimate the skills shortage to be in the order of 200,000 skilled workers over the next five years, indicating that we have a significant need to train young people to develop their skills so that they can be deployed in the labour market. In other words, we need to take steps now to ensure that there will not be further constraints in the economy as a result of the exacerbation of the existing skills shortage.

Different skills pressures will arise in different labour markets as a result of differences in local economies. Given the skills shortage and the relative ease with which skilled workers can find employment, I sought to look at the respective skills shortages that had occurred in south-west Sydney. Despite the government crowing about 30-year lows in unemployment, you need not travel too far around the south-west of Sydney to know that the government is trying to dupe people with a reference to aggregate statistics and averages which are, quite frankly, far removed from local realities.

Unemployment in the south-west of Sydney is high; there is absolutely no denying that. It is too high, in everyone’s view. But the Howard government has done little to address that problem. In March this year the unemployment rate in the electorate of Werriwa was 8.2 per cent, in Macarthur it was 6.1 per cent, in Fowler it was 8.5 per cent, in Prospect it was 7.7 per cent and in Chifley it was 8.4 per cent. No doubt we would all agree that these rates are high; at the very least, they are well above the national average. By comparison, the unemployment rate for the electorate of Lindsay in March this year was 4.8 per cent. That is not equal to the national unemployment figure, but it is certainly much closer to it. So, on the approximate measure of the need for skills being one rationale for the selection of Lindsay as a suitable place for one of these colleges, Lindsay does not stack up.

I turn to another criterion which the minister listed—that is, the youth population of the electorate. To compare the credentials of Lindsay with those of other parts of Western Sydney, I compared the number of people under the age of 15 in each of those other electorates. For instance, in Werriwa the number of people under the age of 15 is more than 37,500, in Macarthur it is 33,500, in Fowler it is 29,400, in Prospect it is 28,700 and in Chifley it is 38,000. By comparison, according to the 2006 census, the number of people under the age of 15 in the electorate of Lindsay is just a tad over 28,900. So, on the measure of youth population, Lindsay ranks only slightly higher than Prospect, and below Chifley and Werriwa by a margin of about 10,000 each. You can only say that the government’s argument that this was another criterion for selecting Lindsay as the appropriate place to locate an Australian technical college is somewhat flawed.

Whilst I have not done the analysis of each of the seats in the Penrith area in the south-west, existing industrial capacity and growth potential would be, at best, similar to my area, which is fast becoming an inland port with the development of two intermodal terminals and a third being planned. It is certainly seen as a growth centre not only for the distribution of goods for the intermodals but also for the establishment of employment sites and employment-generating industries based around Liverpool and Campbelltown. I am not sure where Penrith sits in relation to that and I am not sure whether that measure of growth would be quite the same.

Penrith fails to meet the minister’s test on two to three measures that he cites as reasons why the new Australian technical college would be located there. However, on the most important measure—that is, the position of Lindsay on the national electoral pendulum—with a margin of just under three per cent and a Liberal sitting member, Lindsay wins hands down. While it might not stack up on the basis of reasonableness, it certainly stacks up on the Howard government’s ‘pork-o-meter’, as only electorates of need are to be measured by a desperate government. I am sure that my constituency would have been rejected by the minister, and I am sure that I will be accused of some sort of base parochialism; but, on the basis of establishing each of the criteria the minister sets down for the location of this technical college in Lindsay, it is rank opportunism by a desperate government prepared to do and spend whatever is necessary in its approach to the next federal election.

My aim in this contribution has been to highlight the base political motives behind the selection of the location of the Australian technical college in Western Sydney but more than that to look at the whole Australian technical college system, established because of the Howard government’s failure over many years to support the great vocational education systems that we have in this country through TAFE. In 1997 the Howard government cut funding to the TAFE system. Commonwealth revenues in vocational education decreased by 13 per cent from 1997 to 2000 and increased by only one per cent between 2000 and 2004. This government’s neglect of TAFE has come at a cost, which is now manifesting itself in the skills shortages that we are experiencing throughout this nation. The economic constraint that that is creating is a direct result of the actions taken by this government back in 1997. Over the past decade the government’s funding cuts in vocational education and training has forced the TAFE system to turn away more than 325,000 young people. These are young people who would have been taking advantage of the opportunities in our resource industries, who would have been filling various areas of opportunity in the services sector and who, these days, see people coming to this country on 457 visas, taking work that they should have been trained to perform over the past 11 years. This government has taken short-term decisions without looking at the development of the Australian economy with a view to the future.

TAFE has more than 1.2 million students and accounts for 75 per cent of all vocational students and 85 per cent of all training hours, yet this government ignores that fact, preferring instead to duplicate the system through a technical college system—not add to it, not help it to get further established or help it to train more people but to duplicate the system. I would much prefer to see the $1.3 million already spent on the Australian Technical College Western Sydney, the $10 million dedicated to the construction of a purpose-built campus and that part of the $74 million in funding appropriated in this bill for the new Western Sydney technical college extended to TAFE education in Western Sydney. Sadly, that is not going to occur. Madam Deputy Speaker, you know the reasons. This is all about the government’s industrial relations drive. We saw what the government did to the university sector. We saw what the government wanted to do for the TAFE sector. Unless TAFE colleges were going to be compliant with the government’s industrial relations agenda, they were not going to receive that funding. This is just a continuation of an ideologically driven government which is prepared to compromise on tertiary and vocational education. (Time expired)

See this speech in context