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

Would I be welcome there? Absolutely. Would I be happy to go there? Absolutely. I'd also be very happy to go to those electorates—and, in fact, to every electorate in Australia—and talk to them about vocational education. We've heard the opposition speak endlessly about what they claim to be cuts. Let me talk to you a little bit about what damage the opposition did to vocational education. They are at the point now of trying to make a virtue of fixing the damages that they inflicted on the sector. And I'm not going to let them get away with that, not at all. There were some significant declines in the numbers of apprentices in this country and they happened during Labor's last year in government. In 2012-13, we experienced in this country the single biggest decline in apprenticeship numbers. Twenty-two per cent or 110,000 apprentices were lost to this country, because Labor cut the employer incentive to take on an apprentice. They didn't just do it once, twice or three times—they actually did nine successive cuts. Labor took a total of $1.2 billion out of VET funding, out of apprenticeships, and they did, literally, bring the sector to its knees.

Labor also negotiated an agreement with the states, a national partnership agreement from 2012 to 2017. It was $1.75 billion worth of funding—$1.15 billion of that money went to structural reform in the sector; only $600 million went to training outcomes. Over the last four years, we have lived with the damage that Labor inflicted to the VET sector. However, the Turnbull government has successfully negotiated an agreement with the majority of states and territories, covering the majority of the population in this country, to make sure that we will get some outcomes in the sector. We have partnered with the states. We will be developing projects that will have key milestones, and payments based on those milestones, and we will be looking at absolute outcomes to increase the number of apprentices that we have in training—at the pre-apprenticeship level, so that we're starting the pipeline; at the apprenticeship level, where we know we have some significant shortfalls in apprenticeship numbers; and also at the higher apprenticeship level, where we know we have an emerging sector. I said right at the beginning that we see education as a highway, and we do. Vocational education is part of that highway, and it is a critical part of that highway for our future.

I am on the record as saying that universities have been extraordinarily successful in building and selling the dream of what a university degree can offer. And for many people, that is a reality. I'm very supportive of the work that universities are doing, and there are many people who study at university and go on to very worthwhile, rewarding careers, and that's great. But there are many people out there who would be much better served if they followed a vocational education pathway. The government is committed to making sure that those people do not feel that they are second-class citizens and that they are given every opportunity to succeed in worthwhile, rewarding, fulfilling careers. We have put money on the table—$1.5 billion through the Skilling Australians Fund. We are supporting the Australian Apprenticeship Support Network to go out there and make sure that we are getting the right people into apprenticeships and matching them with the right employers. We are building a vocational education strategy so that we can make sure that we can attract those students in the latter years of their schooling to follow a vocational education pathway—because we know that we need their skills, and we know that they need a fulfilling job for the future, and we're planning to make sure they get it.

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