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

It is a pleasure to follow the honourable member for Oxley and his fine contribution to this debate on the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2007. From the outset I want to say that I agree with his remarks that on this side of the House we are interested in any solutions that will provide additional training opportunities for students that we represent in our electorates. We are not ideologues; we are not hidebound. We welcome innovation. It was on that basis that this proposal for Australian technical colleges was welcomed. I note that this bill is to increase the funding for the additional three technical colleges to be located in Perth, Brisbane and Western Sydney. The funding will increase by $74.7 million, taking the government’s overall contribution for 28 colleges to $548 million.

If you were to listen to the contributions of government members, you would not understand what businesses have been complaining about. Whether they are small, medium or large, businesses have been complaining consistently for some time that there are insufficient people being skilled and trained in this country. That is a tragedy. If we dismiss small business as just a bunch of whingers who do not know what they are talking about, we should at least take note of the Reserve Bank, which on more than 20 occasions has pointed to the skills shortage in the economy. This is acting as a handbrake on the economy. Our growth could be more sustainable if we had more skilled workers in our economy and did more training.

I want to get back to Western Sydney, my part of the world, which I am very proud to represent. We have a temporary college in Western Sydney at a temporary location. Notwithstanding it being up and operating—it is at Rouse Hill, an interim location—in 2007 it had an enrolment of 20 students. The actual enrolment was 20; the target enrolment was 25. For these 25 students the funding was $1.302 million. This is a very expensive way of training people. Consistent with the way these technical colleges are going, the training is often outsourced. So we are getting a double hit: you have to manage those contracts as well as the contracts of the students. I am proud to come from Western Sydney. In 2016 more than half of Sydney’s population will live in Western Sydney, but we have got only one technical college—its temporary location will be replaced by a permanent location at Schofields—to service Western Sydney.

I have some figures here that indicate just how many students there are in the TAFEs in my part of Western Sydney—not south-west Sydney; this is the Western Sydney Institute area. TAFEs delivered programs to 85,000 students in 2006 in eight campuses: Baulkham Hills, Blacktown, Blue Mountains, Mount Druitt, Nepean-Kingswood, Nepean-Penrith, Nirimba and Richmond. I am not counting south-west Sydney. What is the ATC delivering? It is delivering programs to 20 students—that is what it is actually delivering—and it is programmed to deliver to 25. That is a disgrace.

When you scratch the surface of the Howard government you will find an ideology. They are not interested in what is going to deliver the most practical outcomes. Where will the government and the taxpayers get the biggest punch for their money? I would have thought that the Western Sydney Institute, which is servicing 85,000 students, probably has the capacity to take on board another 25. In fact, I think it could take on a lot more if this government were serious about solving the skills shortage problems in our community. They are not. They would much rather have 457 visas, and we know all the problems that are associated with those visas. I well remember the Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce in Cairns telling me how disgusted he was that for every application that was submitted and granted to import a skilled worker—none failed; there is a 100 per cent success rate—not one check-up was undertaken by the department to see whether or not the conditions were actually being met, whether the shortage was real or not. I do not mind importing people; I do not mind having them come here, adding to our migrant population and our skills base. The thing that I really object to is when we are not doing the right thing to provide opportunities for our young people.

I would like to reiterate some of the points that the honourable member for Oxley spoke about. Now, after three years of the operation of these technical colleges, so lauded by every backbench member of the coalition, there has been not one graduate. There are only 1,800 enrolments in these technical colleges, but to that we are proposing to put in half a billion dollars. Half a billion dollars goes to 1,800 enrolments of the Australian technical colleges. Just two of the 21 colleges met their 2007 enrolment targets. I repeat: just two of the 21 colleges met their 2007 enrolment targets. What was the average cost? It was $175,000 per student. That is an enormous amount of money per student when you have not actually graduated any of your students. Only a third of the colleges are legally registered to provide training. As I mentioned previously, the colleges have outsourced the bulk of their training to TAFEs or registered training organisations.

One of the things I constantly hear from either the Minister for Vocational and Further Education or, alternatively, the backbenchers of the coalition, is that we are producing more apprentices now than we ever did. It would be a good thing if that were the truth. But, of course, the truth is that the Howard government folded traineeships into apprenticeships very early on, so they are just the one figure. So whenever it talks about apprenticeships, the reality is that the Howard government is talking about apprenticeships and traineeships. I have no difficulty with anyone doing a traineeship and I think it is a good thing that they were introduced, but I think it is very dishonest to suggest that someone doing a 12-month or six-month traineeship is equivalent to someone doing one of the more traditional trade apprenticeship programs. I think it is very dishonest of the government to run around claiming that there are more apprentices these days than there ever were under the former Labor government.

If we think that education and vocational education are really important in our society or communities—and I think they are—we would surely see an increase in spending; we would surely see that the proportion of government outlays going to education would be increasing. If that were the case, it could be truly said that the government of the day, the Howard government, was investing in the future of our society—investing in young people. But, of course, it is not. The investment is declining. Education expenditure is anticipated to decline from 7.7 per cent of total spending in 2005-06 to just 7.4 per cent in 2010-11.

Isn’t it disappointing, if you accept that there is a skills shortage, that expenditure on education is going to decline rather than increase as part of government outlays? I would like to think that it would, in fact, increase. I certainly hope that at the next election we elect a Labor government, and that would be the result over the next period of office of the government. Labor also have a program which would result in the establishment of trade facilities in schools. Something like $250 million will provide appropriate training facilities for the nation’s high schools over a 10-year period. I think that is a good thing. We have a long way to go to develop the vocational education opportunities for secondary students who are still in secondary schools. I note that in my own electorate the state government has designated Colyton High School, which will now be in the electorate of Lindsay, and Chifley College Senior Campus as part of the trade school system. That is a good initiative.

There has been an Auditor-General’s report of these Australian technical colleges and, not surprisingly, it has been very critical. It has been very critical of the haste with which the government has proceeded with these colleges. It has drawn attention to the lack of planning and integration and discussion with the state education systems. I think that the government should take to heart exactly what has been said in the Auditor-General’s report. I am not going to go through every piece of criticism.

Where does Labor stand? As I said at the beginning of my speech, we support a fresh and different approach. We wish that the Australian technical colleges could have fulfilled just one-tenth of the hype of the government, but, sadly, they have failed to measure up to date. I hope that we can get them to succeed. I think it is a good thing to have a variety of different educational and training opportunities for young people. I believe that there is a place in the sun for Australian technical colleges, but they need to be much better administered. I do not think we can continue to have them costing $175,000, on average, per student. That is horrendous. We certainly need to get those costs down. My own part of the world, Western Sydney, is the third largest economy in Australia. Having just 20 of these students enrolled in the third largest economy in Australia is, in my view, nothing to boast about. As I said, the TAFEs have a huge presence in Western Sydney.

Since the state government has amalgamated the department of education with the department of vocational education, I am looking to see more robust outcomes in the vocational area from our traditional high schools. The Leader of the Opposition, Kevin Rudd, has already announced a positive and practical measure that will allow many of the high schools in my electorate to give a better suite of choices to those students who want to enter the world of work but want to get some vocational training and perhaps even become a traditional apprentice.

We need to say in Australia that we put a priority on young people, that we value young people, that we want to give them opportunities and that we want them to be able to enter the world of work well-qualified for the challenges of working in private enterprise as apprentices or trainees. I support the amendment moved by Mr Stephen Smith, the member for Perth.

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