Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I argue very strongly that the amendment to the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Amendment Bill 2015 should be agreed to, but, in doing so I would firstly like to pick up on a comment that the previous speaker made. I agree with much of her contribution to this debate but not her comments about the New South Wales government's Smart and Skilled program. This program is actually an attack on vocational education in that state. For her to stand up here, in this parliament, and praise Smart and Skilled is really praising an attack on vocational students in New South Wales. I will talk a little bit more about that later in my contribution to this debate.

I support the amendment put forward by the member for Cunningham. Unfortunately, under this government's watch and the watch of the New South Wales government, vocational education and training is in free-fall when it comes to vocational and education training providers—I will refer to them as VET providers from here on in—being poorly monitored. In New South Wales, the government is slashing funds to TAFE.

This bill is long overdue and it does make some significant improvements in this area, but it does not go far enough, unfortunately. All members of this House will have constituents who have been in touch with them about how they have been duped by private providers who act irresponsibly and who sign people up to inappropriate and substandard courses. This legislation is an improvement, but, as I said, it does not go far enough. I will in a moment spend some time highlighting just how ineffective the monitoring of this area is and how little recourse people—usually young people—have when they are signed up to undertake a course with providers who, in many cases, are very unscrupulous.

As the previous speaker mentioned, there have been media reports of unscrupulous RTOs, registered training organisations, preying on vulnerable students who end up with large VET-FEE HELP tax debts. I will talk a little about a constituent in the Shortland electorate, Leah. I met with Leah's mother at one of my mobile offices and she told me the story of Leah. Leah received an ATAR score of 33 per cent, and so she enrolled at the University of Newcastle to improve her ATAR score—academically, not strong. While Leah was at the university—she was actually in the library—she received a phone call from Careers Australia. This is the organisation that I am going to talk about here—'The fastest way to a better job'. Well, it has not been a fast way for Leah. Leah was offered a double diploma in business and management. She thought a double diploma in business and management. She thought: 'That sounds reasonable.' This is a double diploma in business and management for a young person who had a very, very low ATAR score and who needed to improve her academic achievement before she could enrol in something at that level. Ten minutes later she received another phone call from them, from which she understood that the government was covering the cost of the course and that it was going to be an online course. She was directed to a link to sign up online while she was sitting in the library. When signing up to this diploma, Leah was not informed about the debt that she would incur to the tax office, the full costs associated with the course, how FEE-HELP would affect her financial life later or what the sets of data were or what they meant.

Leah submitted her first assignment three times and did not receive the competency. Until she received her first letter indicating that she had incurred a cost for the first part of the course, she was not aware of this aspect of the implication of signing up. She then brought it to her mother's attention. She felt that she had been taken advantage of and that she did not fully understand the system. The process to sign up was quick and she thought it was a government paid course. She did not have any time to see what was involved in the study or to assess her ability to achieve the competencies it required. Regardless of her academic level, through the whole process the cost was not explained to her properly. Her mother has written to Careers Australia explaining this and is still waiting for a response. At the moment her total debt is $16,787.97 and she does not have any competencies. Instead, what she has is a large debt, and her opportunity to find employment has not improved at all.

That is the type of situation that this legislation is addressing. We on this side of the House have a strong record on helping students and workers to get the skills that they need. I am a particularly strong supporter of school based apprenticeships and apprenticeships within my local community.

FEE-HELP was a direct result of a Howard government initiative in 2007 and commenced in 2009. We established a national regulator—the Australian Skills Quality Authority—and in 2012 increased coverage of VET-HELP to diplomas and associate diplomas. We acknowledge there is a role for them, but the thing is that they have to be properly monitored. That is what I would argue strongly has not been happening. The Australian Skills Quality Authority, ASQA, regulates RTOs. It says that it has received 4,000 complaints and conducted 3,000 audits since it was established in 2011. It needs to be strengthened. It needs to have more power and greater authority, as is set out in the amendment by the minister.

There are more than 4,500 private training colleges in Australia. The number has grown exponentially since this government came to power. The government has allocated $68 million to clean up the industry, but it has also cut in other areas. So whilst it has given lip service to addressing this issue I do not think that this government's performance in this area has been nearly strong enough. There have been 350 colleges cancelled, suspended or refused registration. In addition to that, we have report after report of issues such as childcare centres blacklisting accredited training organisations because they provide poor training to enrolled students. There are industry cowboys providing quick, dirty services. There are students saying that teachers forget to teach half the content of courses. There has been action, as I mentioned, against hundreds of providers. Unions have called for a national inquiry into training. I must say that I feel that, from everything I have read, that is something that needs to happen. In Victoria the situation has been particularly bad. I know that when the new minister for education and training took office he was horrified at the extent of the problem.

But what really concerns me is that in its minibudget this government is cutting $200 million in important skills funding. It has cut $66 million from Support for Adult Australian Apprentices and slashed over 10,000 training places from the Skills for Education and Employment program. The Support for Adult Australian Apprentices program was put in place to remove barriers to completing an apprenticeship and to encourage upskilling for adult workers. Unfortunately adult apprentices are now in an unenviable position because of the cuts to programs. It has been a devastating blow to adult workers. This is added on to the 2014 cuts of almost $2 billion.

The Abbott government has also axed $43.8 million from the Skills for Education and Employment program. That funding was for over 10,000 places in training programs that help job seekers who have poor literacy and numeracy skills bring their reading, writing and basic maths skills up to speed. That is very important if you are going to be seeking employment. The government does not understand how hard it is for somebody with poor numeracy and literacy to keep a job or how hard it is for somebody with poor literacy and numeracy skills who is unemployed to find a job. This government does not have a plan to help people find a job; rather, it has a plan to extend their training to private providers, and that will lead to more young Australians ending up with debts.

At the commencement of my contribution to this debate I indicated that I would refer to the New South Wales government. The New South Wales government has been privatising vocational education through funding policies such as Smart and Skilled, which came into effect on 1 January. My office and I have received many complaints, and we receive them because there is no point going to the office of the state member. He was a Liberal Party member but now he is an Independent after his appearance at the New South Wales ICAC. This policy has led to cuts in programs, it has led to cuts in specialist positions like disability support workers in TAFE, and it has led to a decline in vocational education through the TAFE system.

Premier Baird has attempted to divert attention from the state government's Smart and Skilled policy to privatise TAFE. It is designed to take money out of TAFE and hand it over to private for-profit organisations, when the Baird government has already slashed TAFE funding and TAFE courses, has sacked teachers and support staff and has increased fees. The New South Wales election will be held next month and voters will have a chance to say no to the Smart and Skilled program. Labor does not support the Liberals' Smart and Skilled privatisation program and have committed to scrapping it, TAFE fees will be frozen at 2014 levels, indexed to inflation, and a 30 per cent cap will be placed on the amount of public funding contestable by private operators.

The unfortunate thing is that whenever a Liberal-National Party government is in power it impacts upon the students and it impacts upon the public sector—it diverts money from the public sector to the private sector. There needs to be proper monitoring of the private sector, but they do not include that in their privatisation push. The Liberal Party and the National Party are the parties of privatisation, and in New South Wales this has been exhibited very clearly. The people of New South Wales have a very clear decision to make at the end of this month.

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