Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Vocational Education) Share this | Hansard source

It has been a very interesting 24 hours for the vocational education and training sector, and I anticipate a very interesting debate in the chamber today. We have seen in Fairfax media the release of a draft document about the potential for a federal takeover of the vocational education and training sector. This is, I would argue, a critically important question for the future of Australia, directly relevant to issues that all of us in this chamber have on numerous occasions said we were engaged with—that is: jobs; innovation; growing new industries; transforming existing industries to make them sustainable into the future; making sure that Australians, as the world of work changes as it is disrupted by technology, are capable, with the skills and knowledge needed, to take up the opportunities that are offered. These are real, direct, economic and social questions that go to the heart of some of the major debates we are having in this country about what policies will actually deliver for the future.

Once again, today we have seen that, while the Prime Minister likes to talk about being innovative, he is certainly very agile in the way that he interprets that. There is absolutely no doubt from worldwide evidence over decades that, if you want to drive innovation, if you want to drive jobs growth and if you want to have sustainable transformation in your industries and your economy, the critical factor underpinning that is the quality and reach of your education sector at all levels.

This government has gone out of its way to fail at all levels. We have seen in particular the school sector being gravely disappointed by this government. The Prime Minister got up in question time today, faced with this particularly important question, and gave us another Turnbull lecture on teacher quality.

You do not have to tell us how important teacher quality is. In fact, I am an ex-teacher. I know very well what teacher quality is and how significant it is in the classroom. But I can also tell you: cutting to the bone the funding that you provide to our schools is going to have a pretty dramatic and devastating effect as well. And that is what this government has done: made $30 billion in cuts to schools and abandoned the final two years of Gonski funding, despite their promises before the election.

My colleagues the members for Adelaide and Kingston, in their portfolio areas, and each and every one of us in this room will continue to make the government face up to the fact that they need to deal with the funding issue in the education sector. I will say that, no matter what they do say, we will probably be pretty sceptical about it, given what they said before the last election and what they have actually delivered. But we will not absolve them from addressing the issue of funding in our schools.

What is happening in the post-secondary sector? Is there any good news there?

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