Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, in your remaining few minutes in the chair and what I understand to be the last few minutes in this parliament. I am sure in those few minutes you will show great leadership and balance in the chair and, because you are a patient man, you will not worry about the interjections from the minister at the table or from his friend on the back bench. That is testament to your patience rather than their conduct.

As I was saying, as a result of the Howard government’s failure to plan for Australia’s long-term future, we have a skills crisis in Australia, and I think the minister at the table would find it hard to deny that. We see businesses desperate for skilled workers. That, of course, is a direct result of the Howard government’s failure to plan ahead and its failure to train the available jobless Australians for available jobs. Labor has a different approach. Labor believes that people who can work should work and that those who genuinely cannot work should be cared for. We believe that work is a foundation of social inclusion. Everyone benefits when more people can participate in the social and economic mainstream. Labor’s approach to workforce participation is to identify the reasons why some people are not participating as much as they could or would like to and to deliver practical solutions.

For instance, take the plan announced by Labor leader Kevin Rudd at the weekend to create Skills Australia. Skills Australia will play a central role to ensure that we lock in a full employment economy and that we develop a highly skilled and innovative workforce for the future—things which, presumably, the minister is opposed to. It will assess evidence from commissioned research and industry stakeholders to inform Australia’s workforce development needs. Skills Australia will provide government with recommendations about the future skills needs of the country. It will identify future skills shortages so that they can be addressed before they negatively impact on economic activity. It will identify persistent skills shortages so that current capacity blockages can be overcome. It will identify barriers that prevent skills formation in areas where persistent skills shortages exist and it will identify industries where retraining and upskilling of workers may be required to prevent unemployment, underemployment and skills obsolescence.

In making its recommendations to government, Skills Australia will have regard to the objective of achieving full employment, the international competitiveness of the Australian economy, the promotion of innovation through skills acquisition, the provision of a sufficient number of appropriately qualified workers for industries of critical national importance and the role of state and regional economies in contributing to the success of the broader Australian economy.

All of this work has been neglected by the Howard government and, as a result, a survey of more than 760 producers conducted by the Australian Industry Group, a survey reported under the title of Australia’s skills gap costly, wasteful and widespread, found that one in two businesses were experiencing difficulties in obtaining skilled labour. It is hardly a record for a government to be proud of after 11 years when Australian producers are saying to it that its lack of attention to Australia’s skills gap has left them with a problem which is costly, wasteful and widespread.

The Monash University-ACER Centre for the Economics of Education and Training has estimated that more than four million additional people will need to acquire qualifications from 2006 to 2016. This includes more than two million new entrants and 1.78 million existing workers. Of these, 61.4 per cent will need a vocational education and training qualification and 38.6 per cent a higher education qualification. The simple reality is that businesses are desperate for skilled staff and people only get a job if they have the skills an employer needs and wants.

Yet again, with this bill another opportunity passes to help jobless Australians gain skills, and beyond this bill the Howard government has no plan to match current and future needs for skilled workers with people who could be working. All of a sudden, remarkably, we are supposed to believe that after 11 years the Howard government, including the Treasurer, have a vision for engaging in our community those who are not active participants in the labour market or our community. It is quite remarkable that after 11 years as Treasurer the Treasurer is now inviting us to believe that he has a vision for this country. If the man had a vision for this country then surely that would have showed at the commencement of his period as Treasurer and he would have been pursuing that vision. Instead, we see the Treasurer desperately scrabbling around trying to look like he has got half an idea about something, just as we saw yesterday the government’s backbenchers, in their party room meeting, desperately scrabbling around trying to look like the government had half an idea about something. It is not clear whether they found any of those answers but they spent more than two hours looking for half an idea and not one idea has yet emerged about the future from the Howard government.

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