Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

As I was saying before question time, the example of Western Sydney is a very good one when it comes to this government’s failure in the matter of technical education. On 23 June 2006, the government announced to great fanfare a new Australian technical college for Western Sydney. The then Minister for Vocational and Technical Education announced that the Catholic Education Office, with industry partners, had won the tender to construct and operate a Western Sydney ATC. He said: ‘I look forward to the college opening in early 2007.’ But the facts have not matched the press release and the reality has not matched the then minister’s expectation. That bid process fell apart and the Catholic Education Office was, in my view, treated in a less than ideal manner. The people of Western Sydney have been dealt a blow in that they now have a technical college with a student body of 20 out of a possible 25 students. For the entire Western Sydney region we have 20 students in the ATC, which is in Rouse Hill. I have nothing against Rouse Hill, but anybody who would suggest that people from greater Western Sydney—from south-west Sydney or other parts of Western Sydney—would be able to easily get to Rouse Hill is clearly having themselves on and has no knowledge of how Western Sydney works or of the importance of more technical education places in Western Sydney.

This has become an annual debate, with the government bringing in more legislation, more appropriation bills and more amendment bills to fix up problems with ATCs as we go along. This debate happens around this time of year every year. It is always useful to go back and say what you said last time it was debated. On 22 June 2006, I said:

This policy does not reduce duplication; it creates it.

A year before that, I said that this policy would take a long time to get up and running and that there would be a start-up lag. Clearly, the government rejected those arguments at the time, but the reality has been borne out. Those predictions have been borne out by the reality.

The experience of Western Sydney has been replicated across the board. Senate estimates heard recently that the average cost per student in an ATC is $175,000. That compares to an average cost per TAFE student of around $15,000. What an inefficient and incompetent way to get involved in technical education in this country! Can you imagine what could have been achieved if the half a billion dollars which has now been allocated by this government to their ATCs had been allocated to the existing TAFE system? If we avoided duplication, if we avoided fights with the states, if we sat down with the states and worked cooperatively and said: ‘We want to spend half a billion dollars on technical education in this country and you have the infrastructure. You have the expertise. Let’s work together and work out ways for you to implement, in cooperation with us, a major expansion of the number of students in technical education in this country,’ can you imagine what could have been achieved? In Victoria alone, where the average cost per student is only $25,000 according to some figures, the Victorian schools minister estimates that an extra 8,000 students could have been trained.

The government’s own figures say that we have a skills shortage of some 200,000 people in this country. We need 200,000 more trained, highly skilled tradespeople. And what is the government’s contribution? In Western Sydney, it is 20. In the Illawarra, it is 35 out of a possible 50. In northern Tasmania, it is 120 out of a target of 175. In Port Macquarie they are doing a little better—302 out of a possible 325. In eastern Melbourne, it is 86 out of a target of 180. Across the country, it is 1,800. We need 200,000; this government has spent half a billion dollars and we have 1,800, and it will be some years yet before any of those graduate.

There could have been many multiples of 1,800 if the government did not have an ideological and political obsession with fighting with the states, if it did not say in this place: ‘Oh, you can’t give it to TAFE. They’re dominated by those evil people—the states and the unions.’ If the government had said, ‘It doesn’t make much sense to completely duplicate an existing system,’ we might have more people going into technical education in this country. Over 300,000 people have been turned away from TAFE in this country. The government says, ‘Blame the states,’ but the Australian people are not interested in the blame game; they are interested in the solution game. This government is not in the game of solutions; it is in the game of cheap political points. That is what the government does and it does it quite well. This failed policy cannot provide any solutions.

It is not just me who believes this. I read with some interest the report of the Australian National Audit Office. You would understand that these reports are always couched in quite moderate and temperate language. It is very unusual for them to use an inflammatory set of words, but you always know what they mean. The Audit Office were particularly critical of the government’s failure to work with the states in this area. They said that insufficient attention had been paid to state and territory governments. They said that in one region the program has had to address significant issues because of the co-existence of a new college with existing state government secondary schools. Additionally, the Audit Office reported that nearly half of the first 24 colleges were awarded on the basis of a very small number of tenders—one or two applications. They said it would have been better to go back to the market, but of course they could not do so because the government was in a hurry. For political reasons, the government wanted to ram the colleges through. Of course, the government would not have needed to ram the process through with only one or two tenders and avoid going back to the market if it had got the policy settings right in the first place and worked with state governments for a cooperative arrangement.

The government’s arrogance really knows no bounds. The current Minister for Vocational and Further Education released a press release calling on me to apologise for criticising his policy. He called on me to apologise to the students of ATCs. I have no beef with the students of ATCs; I have a big beef with him. I have a big beef with the government’s arrogance and incompetence. The government do not have much to run on. One thing that a conservative government do try to run on is competence. They certainly do not try to run on their philosophy. They say, ‘Trust us because we are basically pretty competent.’ But they have been completely incompetent in administering ATCs. As I said before, one person has paid the price: the former minister was sacked. You have to try pretty hard to be sacked in this government—you have to be pretty incompetent—because the Prime Minister does not like sacking ministers very often. But the minister for vocational education and training was bad enough, and we called for his sacking long enough, that the Prime Minister eventually saw no alternative but to sack him, as he should have been sacked.

But the arrogance continues under this minister. I admit that he is fixing up many of the problems left him by his predecessor, but his arrogance continues. He issues press releases saying how dare the Labor Party criticise ATCs and that we should apologise to the government and to the students of the ATCs. He is the one who should apologise for the absolute disaster, the public policy disaster, that has been wrought on Western Sydney. A campus was promised in mid 2006 for many more students than 20 and now we have 20 students being educated in conjunction with a school in Rouse Hill. That is this government’s contribution to technical training and education in south-western Sydney, and Western Sydney more generally. My electorate in south-western Sydney has the biggest industrial estate in the Southern Hemisphere. It is has huge needs for skills training, and yet this government’s contribution is 20 students.

The rebadging of student apprentices in one school does not amount to a plan for the future. It does not amount to a significant contribution to technical skills and education in Western Sydney. Everybody knows that we have a skills crisis in this country. There have been occupations on the skills shortage list in some cases for 11 years and more. The government have only become involved in technical education in a serious way over the last two years. What have they done? They have announced a duplication of an existing state system. They have announced that they will not work or cooperate with the states. As such, they are being criticised by no less authority than the Australian National Audit Office.

It is this government which should apologise. It is this government which should say: ‘We got it wrong. We should be working with the states. We should be adopting something like Labor’s policy, which is trades in schools, giving schools extra funding to teach more trades, and capital funding for important technical classrooms.’ The minister pooh-poohs it; the minister belittles it. In an arrogant way he says, ‘All you are doing is buying lathes and hairdressing machines.’ It is much more than that. With a bit of vision and commitment to back up the policy we can turn every school in this country into a technical college. That is what the Leader of the Opposition did in his address-in-reply to the budget. He put out an alternative vision in this important field. Yet all the government can do is carp and issue silly press releases calling on Labor members of parliament to apologise for criticising the program.

The minister’s press release is quite amusing. He says, ‘Chris Bowen, in typical style, wants to take these away by calling them a national disgrace.’ I do call their policy a national disgrace. It has been a complete and utter duplication of a system which could have been enhanced. It could have been grown. Putting half a billion dollars into the TAFE and schools education system in this country could have achieved a great deal, but instead we see a mechanism in place in which new colleges are built. They have to be started, there are understandable start-up lags and time has to go into building them and getting the capital structure in place, hiring employees et cetera. This all takes time. It would all be unnecessary if a more holistic, visionary approach had been taken.

We have now seen the announcement of a second Western Sydney ATC, which I understand is to be in Penrith, in the electorate of Lindsay. We have one in the Liberal electorate of Greenway; now there will be one in the Liberal electorate of Lindsay. That is good; I welcome that. I hope it is more successful than the first one. I hope that in three years time I will not be saying, ‘We’ve got 20 students now in the Penrith ATC,’ because it will need to be administered a whole lot better than the first one was. The tender negotiations with the winning tenderer will need to be handled a whole lot better than the first ones were. I can tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that there are a lot of very angry people who were involved in the failed project to establish the first ATC, and the government knows it. They are not people who are traditionally critical of the government, but these people are very angry about the way in which they have been treated.

I simply hope that the implementation of the second ATC, in Penrith, which we do not oppose because we will support anything which does a little bit of good, goes smoothly. We are not going to stand in the way of funding something which may do a little bit of good, but we reserve the right to point out that we think the money could be spent a whole lot better. We reserve the right to say that 8,000 extra students in Victoria alone would have been a more efficient and better result. It is not just about the use of taxpayers’ money, as important as it is; it is about the opportunity cost. People are missing out because they are being turned away from the TAFE system.

This has been a public policy disaster. As I say, I hope that in 12 months time, when we return to this debate, as we are likely to do, we will not be saying that the ATC at Penrith has been as disappointing as the ATC at Rouse Hill in terms of take-up rates and student numbers. I do not mean any disrespect to the people at Rouse Hill, who I am sure are working very hard and doing the best they can with the resources given to them by this government. I am saying that there is a much better way, and it is very disappointing for the future of this nation in this very important area that it has not been done much more efficiently.

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