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

I am pleased to speak on this MPI, the current failure of the Commonwealth and states to reach agreement on the future funding of technical and further education, by the member for Lyne. I appreciate his continued presence in the chamber. I would probably rewrite that as 'the current failure of the Commonwealth'. I agree with the member for Lyne. Yes, we have a problem but the problem is this government.

The member for Lyne also said that the vocational education sector is under threat. I think in many respects that is linked to a Commonwealth agenda that is displaced and misplaced from the local frontline state agenda. But I agree with him: it should be of great concern, because these things have always been of great concern to all members of parliament. I will, later in my remarks, mention what I think is a failure of the member for Lyne in his own electorate when it comes to vocational education and training. It is hard to mention, but it needs to be said.

I know that the COAG process is cumbersome, it is complicated, it is hard to understand—it is state and federal governments sitting around a table, ministerial councils hanging off, complicated senior officials' processes and so on. The current negotiations that we are talking about—the national partnership—stem from an announcement made by the Prime Minister on 19 March this year offering a national entitlement to a training place. Everyone knows there was no actual money attached to this—and the states and territories were under no illusions either. We had the Prime Minister and the various ministers who talk about skills trumpeting a $7.2 billion investment in skills. Well, there really was no new money; most of this money is the normal money that goes to state governments from the federal government to address areas of vocational education and training. I would be the first to agree that it is complicated to have these two streams of funding.

The Prime Minister talked about an extra $1-something billion in there. The agreement itself was really quite loose, quite warm and fuzzy. I detected a Prime Minister desperate to be able to make that announcement at the end of the COAG process, desperate to release that communique, and happy to say, 'Look, we'll work out the details later.' So we are working out the details later. I have talked to the states, and there are implementation plans that now have to be done—this is the real work. It is easier for this government to talk about the headline stuff, to talk about the warm and fuzzy announcements, to make us feel like they care and they are looking after us, and they really have money to help with our problems—but in fact that is not the case. Now we get down to the nitty-gritty; now we get down to the implementation plans.

Having said that, I do not know that they are going that badly, but I suspect the states are finding what we would always find on this side of the House—that is, that the money that is announced is not there, not there to the extent that it should be or not doing the job that the Prime Minister reckons it will. Those opposite will come out with the same old lines they always do on TAFE cuts. It is such a popular topic for members opposite in this place. As if premiers in this country run around wanting to cut TAFE. As if that is the thing they seek to do. As if it gives them some pleasure to cut funding to any areas of education. In fact in Victoria—and I am sure my colleague the member for Wannon may pick up on this—the funding to that sector has actually increased by $1 billion. In New South Wales, I am not sure—we are going through a process—but I know that Premier O'Farrell has said, 'These are difficult decisions; these are decisions that result from the state's finances; these are decisions we would prefer not to make, but we will make modest increases to some of the fees that students will pay'—and, yes, there will be job cuts, in line with job cuts across the public sector.

Everyone who takes an interest in skills and training, as I very much do, look for several important, key things. You look for training that leads to real skills, real jobs, in the real economy. And that comes back to the proper investment of the public dollar, because this is not about having unlimited money to do the education course that a person might want to do at a particular point in their life and their career—although we should always support people doing the course they want, to the extent that we can. But what we have to remember is that we are investing the public dollar for the public good, therefore we have to get the maximum public good for the scarce public dollar. I ask those opposite to concentrate on that when they look at the very necessary changes—yes, they will call them cuts, but the language does not really matter—that are being made at state levels to technical and further education.

I know that in New South Wales TAFE is very important. I am a regional member of parliament, and a rural and remote member of parliament, and I know the importance of TAFE. It will remain, and it will continue to take its place as the very important public provider. But maybe TAFE cannot do everything. Maybe TAFE, that is the public provider, cannot do courses in ceramics or fine arts. I do not for a moment knock the arts, but maybe we should not invest the scarce public dollar in courses that are not going to lead, if not directly then almost directly, to a job—because it is jobs that we should be investing in: people, through our human capital; and the training that we help them with.

Government members will talk about their fantastic record. I just have to mention—actually, in connection with the member for Lyne's comments—about 'vouchers' being a dirty word. It is definitely not a dirty word, and in any national entitlement system, that gets the best value for the public dollar. Vouchers for training are, I think, a very positive thing. They are not the only thing, but they are a very positive thing—vouchers have their place.

The Productivity Places Program that this government launched was a dirty term. Those who understand what it actually meant—courses online, diabolically bad employment outcomes—have no wonder why the states do not trust the federal government on training.

I want to talk about one issue in the member for Lyne's electorate, because he moved this motion. I refer to the former Port Macquarie Australian Technical College, now the Newman Senior Technical College. This is an exceptional centre. It is run as part of the Catholic education system; it has around 320 students a year. Yet under this Labor government it was forced to give the Manning Valley campus to local government. The diocese has done a fantastic job. They have been subsidising the Newman Australian Technical College since 2007, because this government decided they did not like technical colleges—no matter that they provided training that led to real jobs with magnificent support from industry; they did not like them because they were ours.

What has happened in the member for Lyne's electorate is that this particular technical college is now been managed by the Catholic diocese. They have done a fantastic job. The people who manage the college, and want to talk to parliamentarians about it, were brought to see me recently by the coalition candidate for Lyne, Mr David Gillespie. Mr Gillespie has taken this cause on and he is determined to get results and he is determined that a future coalition government will not ignore this wonderful example of local education with a commitment from industry and a huge commitment, as I said, from the diocese. So I believe, in that respect, perhaps the member for Lyne could do better for his constituency and recognise that Australian technical colleges were indeed set up as centres of excellence, a gold standard of technical education—close oversight and influence from industry.

I talked about the things people look for in skills and training policies, and quality training is one of them. I must mention that quality in this country is now being managed by the VET regulator, ASQA. ASQA is trying to do an enormous task with way too little resources. I ask the government to be genuine in their comments on what ASQA can and cannot do, because if they are claiming that it is ensuring quality with Western Australia and Victoria not signed up to the process and the regulator itself badly underresourced, with only six accreditors for the whole country to check on the quality of courses, this is hopeless. This is hopeless stewardship on the issue of VET quality by this government.

The coalition is committed to a training system that meets the needs of industry. We want world-class training. A future coalition government will listen closely to the states and work collaboratively, ensuring the best outcome for Australian businesses and workers. That is the key. This is not magic; we just have to talk to the states. The current government has a vast architecture of skills that no-one really understands, as much of it actually lives in Canberra, the union movement and remote bodies that are removed from real workplaces. There is a lot of money attached to this process, so there needs to be a discussion. There needs to be an honest discussion between the federal government and the states about how those resources could best be combined to have a real skills and training policy that can give students, whether they be school leavers or adult students, absolute confidence that they are getting the best training and that it will lead to the best possible job. That is part of our undertaking to build a stronger economy, boost productivity and benefit all.

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