Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Childcare and Early Childhood Learning) Share this | Hansard source

I am happy to speak on the member for Blair's private members' motion regarding training and workforce development. I thought we might have a contribution that added to the battle of ideas, to the competing philosophies between this side of the House and that side of the House, or something that enabled those listening on the broadcast to think and be inspired and consider aspects of training skills, one of the most exciting parts of the portfolio that I represent in opposition, but all we heard was a speech absolutely dripping with negativity and nastiness. And I am sorry about that.

Demand from China has slowed. We are going to have to recognise this as an indicator that we cannot afford to solely rely on the mining boom for our nation's future prosperity. Not only do we need to look ahead in terms of new industries and services for our economic advancement, but we have to look to our training. We need a nation of graduates who have transferable skills that make them eminently employable in a host of industries, not just confined to one industry with a rigid skills set. We require a vocational education sector that is truly world class, one that offers students flexibility to study whilst ensuring that employers are getting access to graduates with the skills they need to grow and prosper.

TAFE, which occupies a certain component of this motion, does have a critical role to play in providing this vocational training. As a rural and regional member I know only too well that were it not for TAFE many young country students would not be able to study or would be forced to move to bigger centres. We do have some fabulous TAFEs in this country. I was delighted to address the TAFE Directors Australia conference in Perth recently. The drive and willingness of people like Martin Riordan to see TAFE progress and explore new opportunities is great to see. As a publicly funded body it is important that TAFE funding is well directed. Courses that meet Australia's skills in demand should be front and centre for taxpayer funding. We need to correctly identify where funding priorities lie, and the need for this is even more critical when there are fewer dollars to allocate.

Sourcing new markets is of key importance to our TAFEs and private colleges. There is a wealth of opportunity right on our doorstep in Asia and we must ensure that government policies do not hinder this expansion. Yet, we have seen education related travel drop from our third highest export to fourth as new students struggle with the new visa requirements imposed by this government, or have lingering concerns about dodgy providers. These are both areas where the government must be held to account. Last week I wrote to the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research to request that he make sure that the national review of VET regulation give appropriate consideration to the issue of poor or unscrupulous providers. Not only does the continued existence of these providers cause huge harm to our reputation overseas, but it permits Australian students to gain qualifications that are not really worth the paper they are printed on.

Contestable funding offers some real opportunities for our TAFEs. For some they may need to be more business savvy, but this is in the best interests of everyone. It provides a real chance to raise the standards and ensure that taxpayer dollars are focused on those areas that will provide the greatest benefit to the community as a whole. I would also like to see industry linkages between TAFE and the wider community better integrated. In some TAFEs and some communities it is done well but in some it just is not.

The Australian Technical Colleges, a coalition policy, saw a real linkage between industry and training. Regrettably, with Labor abolishing these centres, we have actually lost this key focus. These were centres of excellence that ensured we were training our young people to be first-class employees with a real understanding of what business needed from them. Australian Technical Colleges were a place where students could feel proud to be students, knowing that they were on their way to a bright and prosperous future, and they were absolutely linked in with their local industries and linked in with their next future job.

Instead we saw the government roll out Trade Training Centres, a mere shadow of our former Australian Technical Colleges. Initially they promised one for every school—as many ribbon-cutting ceremonies as a marginal seat MP could dream of—however, in the budget before last, the funding was put on hold. In the most recent budget they put Trade Training Cadetships on hold as a further desperate attempt to realise a budget surplus next financial year.

The disaster that has been this government's Trade Training Centres program really does indicate a fundamental misunderstanding of where the training dollar should go, and it is not in bricks and mortar. We have seen half-baked facilities pop up all around the country. There are some that are good, there are some that are fit for purpose and there are some that are fulfilling a need in their local communities. I am not going to pretend that that is not the case. It is such an extravagant over allocation of capital dollars, of bricks and mortar, not even completing in many cases the fit-out that is required, not even understanding the type of trade that needs to be trained for in a particular location but just saying, 'Here we are, one size fits all. One for every school, for almost every trade.' It has resulted in, as I said, an over allocation of money in bricks and mortar. There is not enough funding for the ongoing actual training effort. If you talk to trainees or apprentices, as I did recently when a group came to the house, of course they want the facilities and they want the best equipment, but what stands out for them is the quality of the training. What should stand out for all of us as members in this place in terms of the approach we bring to vocational education and training is quality. Quality matters most. The government has wasted so much money with pink batts, Trade Training Centres and tuckshops in some of those centres with no space for pie warmers. It is just slapdash—build it and hope it works out.

The coalition understands that every dollar we spend on training must be a dollar well spent. There is no point in training someone if the qualification they receive will not assist them into a job. That is why the coalition has committed to funding four trial sites to train 1,000 Indigenous people in two years. Each person who receives training will be guaranteed a job.

I talked about quality being high and assured and I would envisage that any vocational education system must have that front and centre. We have a body that has not been committed to by every state in terms of regulating quality—ASQA, the Australian Skills Quality Authority, Victoria and WA have not signed up. I have expressed reservations about that body in the past. It does need to get on the case when it comes to dodgy providers and RTOs that are letting us all down. It is simply under-resourced to do that. It has six investigators across the whole country. That is ridiculous. The small examples of providers that do the wrong thing are unfortunately writ large on the national scale and do our national reputation no good at all.

Those opposite talk about the vocational education and training argument in terms of public versus private, which is a huge fundamental mistake to make. In the coalition we support strong public TAFE. We know the role it plays, as I said, especially in regional areas. But we also recognise that an open entitlement system as has been driven by the Prime Minister—not very well, but driven nevertheless in every state and territory—would mean that private operators had an equal place to play on the stage. It is very important that we do not underestimate the role that they can play and that we look at the examples that they can provide. We have leading people in TAFE in this country who are looking to the future, who are excited about those opportunities. Yes, we are in a budgetary environment that is tightening fiscally. That is something we all have to face. That is something we all have to come to terms with. When I look at the skills effort that is duplicated between state governments and the federal government, it makes me cranky. Sometimes I hear of examples where a particular training program is funded by the federal government and the state government as well, and the two competing bureaucrats bump into each other in some location and say, 'We did not know you were funding this.' And, 'Oh, I hear you are as well.' That is absolutely crazy that the coordination between state and territory skills funding is simply not happening on the ground, not happening at all.

I would like to conclude with apprenticeships because they are so important and everyone in this House knows that. People talk about the completion rates for apprenticeships being poor and many reasons are flagged, including lack of income for the apprentices. But I think we overlook the real problem, which is the commencements. I would like to see a system that focuses much more commencements—that puts the right apprentice in the right job, at the right time of their life and doing the trade that is right for them. That is not happening now with this disconnect between federal and state funding not working out on the ground in a workplace or in an apprenticeship program. More has to be done to make that work better in the interests of apprentices and in the interests of future employers.

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