Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Vocational Education and Skills) Share this | Hansard source

There are some comments that I'd actually like to respond to before I actually move to the legislation that's currently before the House, the Education and Training Legislation Repeal Bill 2017. I want to set the record straight, because it is actually really important. I would like to say at the outset that I don't believe that there's another person in this House that is more committed to raising the status of vocational education and making sure that it is rightfully placed as part of the education agenda for this government than me. I have been in this role for 12 months and I'm absolutely committed to making sure that we are addressing the skills shortages that we have now and the skills shortages that are projected into the future.

By way of background, let me talk about the funding through the national partnership agreement, which is the funding agreement that was negotiated between the states and the territories, and the Commonwealth government. There was an agreement negotiated back in 2012. It was a five-year agreement that provided for $1.75 billion of funding to the states. $1.15 billion of the national partnership agreement was dedicated to structural reforms. That left $600 million over five years for direct training outcomes. The agreement that the coalition government has put in place—it was announced in the budget—is for $1.5 billion over four years. So that compares, as a direct training outcome, to $600 million over five years. When matched by the states, that will provide a total of $3 billion. The fund is targeted towards addressing the decline that there has been in apprentices and trainees in training across this country over, probably, the last five years. But, let me say, the biggest decline in numbers in apprentices and trainees in training was in 2012. That came on the back of nine successive cuts of $1.2 billion in total to employer incentives. In that one-year period, the 2012-13 period, we lost 110,000 apprentices and trainees in training from the system, which was about a 22 per cent drop in that one year.

So the coalition government have looked at what we can possibly do to address the serious skills shortages that we have. When the $1.5 billion fund was constructed, we looked at where our target areas were going to be, and that was clearly in the very much-needed area of apprentices and trainees and increasing the number that we had in training. We've identified where the demand areas are going to be in the future by looking at employment data and projections through to November 2020. So over a five-year period, from November 2015 to November 2020, we looked at where some of those demand areas are going to be. Clearly, health and ageing is a priority area, as is disability, an area that we have to start looking at. We've also identified tourism and hospitality, and advanced manufacturing as some clear areas we need to look at. When I've been talking to the states, I've put those on the table as the priority areas that we are looking at, but I've made it very clear that that's not an exclusive list and that I'm happy to work with every state and every territory to make sure that we actually meet the demands of the individual states and territories. If I use Western Australia as an example, the skill demands in Perth are quite different to the skill demands in the Kimberley. I'm more than happy to be working with the states to identify where we need to target those areas.

The national partnership agreement that was negotiated under Labor back in 2012 and that ran for five years—when our apprenticeship numbers declined dramatically—introduced contestability into the market. As a direct result of that, the market share of TAFE dropped from about 60 per cent to a percentage in the high 40s. So the significant drop really came about because of contestability in the market. Those opposite would know that states have responsibility for funding TAFEs and they would also know—or they should know—that the national partnership agreement, which was negotiated when they were in government, did not provide one cent directly for TAFE funding. It provided for training outcomes, but it was up to the states and territories to negotiate how that was to be spent. There is a special purpose payment which goes to each of the states and territories—and again those opposite should be very much aware of the special purpose payment—and under that it's up to the states to determine whether or not they wish to make allocations to any particular training body. So I think it's important, when we actually look at training and education, and particularly vocational education and training, that we look holistically at what has happened over the past five years and look at what we can do collectively into the future.

I'm not a particularly partisan person in my approach, and I've indicated a willingness to work with anyone and everyone to address the skill shortages needs we have, because they're serious. They are really serious, and some of those projections indicate that we will have a shortfall of about 290,000 in 2020, if we do not do anything about it. That's why the coalition government put in place a $1.5 billion fund, aimed specifically at increasing the number of apprentices and trainees in training over a four-year period.

In respect of the legislation that is before the Chamber, the Education and Training Legislation Repeal Bill 2017 continues the government's efforts to tidy up the Commonwealth statute book with the repeal of four spent and redundant Commonwealth acts within the Education and Training portfolio. The four acts being repealed are: the Australian Research Council (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Act 2001; the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia's Skills Needs) Act 2005; the Skilling Australia's Workforce Act 2005; and the Skilling Australia's Workforce (Repeal and Transitional Provisions) Act 2005. Proper housekeeping is part of every government's responsibility to ensure that the legislation on the statute book continues to remain fit for purpose. Bills like this demonstrate this government's continuing commitment to make steady and consistent progress to reduce red tape by repealing redundant and unnecessary legislation that has outlived its purpose. I thank the members and commend the bill.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.

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