Susan Lamb (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you. I do rise in support of the Education and Training Legislation Repeal Bill 2017, just like my parliamentary colleague has. I do agree with her that the bill does nothing but clean up some of the mess left by the Howard government. We know this is what happens when you have a Liberal-National government—mistakes are left behind that have to be fixed up. Let me tell you how I know this, and how I know this so well: it's because I come from Queensland, and people in Queensland remember very well the Newman-Nicholls government. Not only do they remember it; they're still feeling the wrath of that government. We know very, very well what happens when Liberal-National governments are elected. There are a lot of mistakes to fix up, and I just can't begin to imagine how long it is going to take to fix up the mistakes of this current government.

One of the acts the bill is set to repeal is the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia's Skills Needs) Act 2005. As the previous member stated, the colleges were a failure of a coalition government—a program that was created in a misguided attempt to undermine our TAFEs and our public schools. As was so rightly pointed out, the areas that were most affected were the regional parts of this country, where public schools are so crucial. Australians and Labor know that public education is incredibly important. But it's not just public education that's incredibly important; it's the quality of education as well. We believe in and really support our public schools, our TAFEs and vocational education.

It is not really a surprise that the technical colleges program was a failure. Much like the Howard government itself, it proved to be expensive and ineffectual—it really did. Let's be honest: if we look at the data, they had trouble sourcing staff and they had trouble sourcing students as well. The technical colleges contributed very little to filling the trade requirements, even though they had been funded to do that. This government wasted thousands and thousands of dollars on these poorly considered institutions.

Looking back, I spent a number of years in the education system. I have four sons, one of whom is a tradie, and we have some lived experience of this from their school years and those of their school mates who also followed a trade pathway. When I look back, nothing has changed. In 2005, the Howard government made sure that some of their policies were there just to undermine the future of Australia, and I'm very fearful—and a lot of people tell me that they're fearful—that Prime Minister Turnbull, 12 years later, is following in those same footsteps. It seems that the current government looks at the colour of someone's collar to determine if they get support, and I can tell you: they're not looking at the colour blue; the only collar colour that the current government wants to see is white.

Repealing the act is effectively an admission of coalition failure. As a result of successive coalition governments, there were only 148,000 apprentices and trainees across Australia. That was 47,000 fewer apprentices, a drop of 22 per cent in trades training. We're going backwards. We want to grow and progress as a country, but we have fewer apprentices. It just doesn't make sense. Looking through some of the figures—and I know we have all seen these figures; they come across our desks and offices all the time—the number of apprentices and trainees currently in training in each of our electorates is very startling. In my electorate we've dropped by 30 per cent since 2013. I want to reflect on this, because we are very close to the end of the school year and there's going to be a whole cohort of students across my electorate who will be looking for a pathway into training, university or work. If this is the trajectory we're on, and we're already at 30 per cent, then I'm quite fearful of what their future may look like.

I held a forum recently, and a representative from a local apprenticeship association told me that apprentices are being displaced by registered tradespeople. Carpenters was the example he gave me. They're forced into the position of working for apprenticeship wages. They're battling to make a liveable wage. They're taking work away from apprentices, but this shift in work is not being managed or scrutinised by this government. At another forum I held—clearly, jobs and employment are a huge issue in my electorate, which is not dissimilar to many other electorates—a man made a point about why apprentices aren't finishing their course. The evidence he gave was that it's because they're being exploited. This man was referring to his son, who was not being paid award rates or superannuation; he was being exploited. Let's be honest, award rates are barely enough to get by. It's the minimum you can pay someone in this country, but it's not great pay. Some of our students aren't even getting the award to live on. That aside, many apprentices aren't even getting placements that are worthwhile. This man's son was doing a carpentry apprenticeship, and guess what he was doing? He was sweeping floors. I question the skills a carpenter would learn from sweeping floors. My son is a fantastic carpenter—he builds great houses on the north side of Brisbane—but I'm sure he didn't learn those skills sweeping floors.

There has to be better protections for our apprentices—there has to be. We've got to do much better at investing in our young people. As I said, in a couple of short months time in every one of our electorates, we will have kids leaving school and looking for a pathway into a trade. What really baffles me is that, if this government is recognising that their policies haven't been successful and if they're conceding that they've fallen short, why aren't they doing something to fix it? If they can stand in this chamber and concede that their government and the coalition governments that came before them have failed to develop and implement a workable means of improving the provision and uptake of trades training then why won't they take positive steps towards it? Why do they insist on making things worse? It really goes against logic that the Prime Minister would use this 2017-18 budget to cut $637 million from TAFE. Why would they use a budget to cut TAFE? It just defies logic. Why would our Prime Minister not take the lead and invest in education, which means investing in the future for Australian workers? I have worked in schools for a number of years and our students really are both the social and the economic future of this country. Why wouldn't we invest in them? It's the future of our country.

Well, the good news is that Labor is looking at making sure that we are investing in the social and economic future of this country. Fortunately for the Australian people, a Shorten Labor government is just around the corner. A Shorten Labor government will deliver. We will deliver by reversing the $637 million TAFE cut that was handed down in the May budget. We will make sure that we deliver by guaranteeing at least two-thirds of public vocational education funding is for TAFE, that very institution of so many tradies. If you go and speak to a tradie in their 40s and 50s now, they will tell you about TAFE and reflect on the current system. Go and talk to them.

So we will deliver by ensuring that we guarantee at least two-thirds of the funding is for TAFE. Further to that there will be another $100 million in building the TAFE for the Future Fund. That fund would re-establish TAFE facilities in regional communities, like the member for Herbert's, to meet the local industry needs and support teaching in a digital economy. You don't have to travel very far around this country to get to a regional community. If you go for a drive and you speak to people, you will realise how important this would be and the difference it would make. In my 12 months of being here I have seen that our Prime Minister is a bit of a follower. So we encourage him to follow our lead and get some strong, positive policies that will guide this country forward.

I support this bill, but I won't support this government. Some days I think it might be a bit of a joke, but it's not, because these are real people and these are real people's lives. For our students finishing school, this is their future. I looked at the rabble that happened yesterday in the House and then looked at what happened in the other house earlier today. It's frustrating and it's upsetting. We really need to make sure that we pass—

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