Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to talk about my efforts to improve training of young people in the electorate of Hasluck and the concept more broadly. When I was elected I met with education providers to talk about those young people at risk of dropping out of the education pathways. In that discussion we talked about some of the potential opportunities. I quote from the report by the OECD:

Australia is facing a stark reality. Our long-term economic and social prosperity depends on the depth of skills in the population, and the better use of those skills, to overcome the risks of a fiscally unsustainable ageing population. Rapid changes in the global economy mean accelerating competition, especially from low-wage economies. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development stresses that member countries will need to compete from a base of high-quality, innovative goods and services.

The other challenge that we face, and the reality for Australian society, is that access to a sustainable domestic workforce against the impacting factors of an ageing workforce, inflexible work arrangements, young Australians wanting quality of life and not just the current practice of 'one job for life', and the urban influence and not the rural consideration.

One of the challenges I discussed with the group was: can the emergent problem of developing a future workforce be fixed through rethinking the current curriculum or is it about planning for a new and different workforce that is shaped on models of service division by geographic and economic definitional constraints? Can innovation and being creative around developing a new workforce take account of traditional training whilst exploring opportunities to provide a new style of worker who is multiskilled and who will be part of a new hybrid workforce working in flexible, multidisciplinary teams of service provision?

The world has changed in every way. It continues to change at a more rapid pace in all aspects of our culture.

That quote comes from James Canton PhD, CEO and chairman of the Institute for Global Futures.

Patrick Dixon, in Futurewise: The six faces of global change, says that we need to be 'futurewise', planning to change future thinking at every level to adapt to the global change which is fast, urban, tribal, universal, radical and ethical. The workforce trends that are emerging have provoked much debate. There is global war for talent as talent grows scarce and our population ages in the world. Finding high tech, skilled employees will be problematic.

Against that background, I met with providers and talked about the capacity for them to think about the pathways for young people within the electorate that would give us a different take and a different focus. One of the other things that will be an emerging trend will be that women will comprise a higher percentage of new workers and leaders, forever changing the politics of boardrooms and markets. Our domestic workforce will grow more slowly, and if we think that we can rely on overseas countries to provide that workforce then we have to consider that they are also going below the population replacement lines. China faces that prospect by 2018.

Innovation will be a key driver, and the education systems will need to be overhauled and relisted to meet needs. Nations, organisations and the centres of learning have been asleep and are becoming aware of the shortages of talent to provide our nation's workforce needs. The challenge is in choosing the reality and, as leaders, forecasting industry needs, shaping change and providing a new, highly skilled workforce. Some leaders will retain the status quo and hope the future remains static. Governments need to be leaders or they will become manifestations of troglodytic and Luddite thinking.

One of the first activities I launched on taking office was to have this discussion with the advisory group that I established in education and training. One individual in particular, Ms Everal Miocevich, Principal of Southern River College, was a key person in the group. Southern River College is now, through her vision, challenging the status quo. She has established the Minerals and Energy Academy. This was off the back of the advisory group meetings in 2011.

The academy was launched by the state member for Southern River, Peter Abetz MLA, just recently, and it is premised around a model that Queensland has, because WA, with its mining development, requires skilled workers in a number of areas. The focus now will see these young people engage. Since Ms Miocevich announced this and has been working quietly within her community the school has had an increase in the number of students expressing a wish to attend her college.

Director, Ms Nicole Roocke, from the Chamber of Minerals and Energy, provided an overview from industry, and a representative from Curtin University School of Mines discussed the Mining Game and links with Southern River College as an outcome of this work. This was followed by the commencement of the Mining Game program—a partnership project with Curtin University, Southern River College and partner primary schools: Gosnells, Wirrabirra, Huntingdale, Ashburton, Seaforth and Piara Waters primary schools. The game will see some 186 students competing against each other. Team leadership will be undertaken by Southern River College students and Curtin University mentors.

In addition, the school has established the Gosnells Education, Training and Industry Links or GETIL. It represents a dynamic partnership program operating within the college and aims to build links between local industry, the college students and the broader community. This is achieved through activities that will increase knowledge and opportunities for career and further education and training for the young people of Gosnells and the Southern River regions.

The Skills Australia discussion paper on the future of the VET system, Creating a future direction for Australian vocational and training skills, released in October 2010, is a salient reminder of the value of work being undertaken by both the VET sector and registered training organisations.

I know the coalition is party to helping take education forward in this country, and I enjoy the strong working relationship I have with the shadow minister and will enjoy some of the discussions that will prevail as to the workforce that we need to skill for Australia to be positioned in a global economy and for us to create the talent that is required for companies that will transcend the borders of nations. Our process has to be about enabling the development of those skills by encouraging kids who have dropped out of the education system to consider coming back in and entering alternative models, such as the academy established at Southern River, that lead to employment within the resources sector. Hopefully, this will serve as a model, as will particularly the Queensland example of encouraging our education system to think differently about the way in which we deliver training and educational pathways. In the past we have been geared to skilling people to the TE—tertiary entrance—pathway into universities. There are many students who do not want that option, and this provides them with an alternative that mixes an academic strand with the practical realities of skills that will lead into the resource and mining sector.

I look forward to the day when this becomes commonplace around the country, and when we reconsider the way we deliver the paradigm of education and look at the opportunities that we create to generate the workforce for the future—and by that I mean the workforce that will serve Australia in 2030, 2040 and 2050—so that we start to think about the way in which we develop knowledge, the capacity for people to be innovative and to apply the solution processes to the workplace that enable both their company's and their own aspirations to be met within the context of economic development within this nation, but, more importantly, in the global society in which we all live. Many Australians, as we are all well aware, excel not only in our own nation but also in overseas companies and overseas postings. To that end I acknowledge Everal for what she has done at Southern River College, because her vision and passion and her commitment to her community, and the process of engaging parents and students in the process, has seen this incredible enrolment.

The other thing that I think we need to seriously consider is a speech delivered by Sir Hector Stewart on the defining decade, in which he puts forward the proposition that all industrialised, and even Third World, countries will have problems in terms of having the skilled workforces to provide the drive and the bases for their economies and for the manufacturing and development into the new era of the high-tech advances that will occur within our society.

See this speech in context