Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Financial Services) Share this | Hansard source

This motion, bizarrely, congratulates the government on its reforms in the vocational education sector. On any objective analysis, these reforms have been an abject failure. The facts point to it. Every Australian knows that this government has decimated the TAFE vocational education and training system in this country and, in concert with Liberal state governments, increased fees for people looking to go to TAFE. The results speak for themselves, and the results are quite shocking. How can those opposite say that the government should be congratulated on these policies and that the policies have been a success when there are 150,000 fewer apprentices and trainees in Australia than when they came to government? There are now 150,000 fewer apprentices in this country than when those opposite came to government in 2013. How can they claim that as a success? It's an abject failure by any person's standard.

As a result, we now have skills shortages in a number of occupations throughout the country. Employers struggling to find workers to fill those skills shortages are instead importing workers from overseas. We're bringing in workers from overseas to fill the skills shortages that exist in Australia at the moment because this government decimated the TAFE system, which resulted in 150,000 fewer apprenticeships and traineeships. Fewer people have been graduating with the necessary trade qualifications to fill those jobs, with skills shortages as the result, yet those opposite want to congratulate each other.

In the TAFE sector those opposite have decimated the once world-leading technical and further education system we had here in Australia in our TAFE colleges. They've massively increased the fees. I put it to them that it's Liberal governments at the state level that have been doing this. In some cases, there have been 300 or 400 per cent increases in the fees for going to TAFE to do an apprenticeship or traineeship. Is it any wonder there are 150,000 fewer apprentices in the country, when they're doing things like that? They've also cut funding for TAFE. They've cut billions of dollars of funding from vocational education and training, predominantly from TAFE colleges. That's resulted in teachers leaving, courses closing and courses being basically contracted out to the private sector. Private sector providers are now coming in and taking over where TAFE was running good, solid public education courses for people in Australia.

We've got a nationwide skills shortage in a broad range of occupations. We're talking about occupations like plumbing, carpentry, hairdressing, motor mechanics. This government doesn't have a plan to fix it. We have a nationwide shortage of skills, without a plan to fix it. It means reinvesting in our TAFEs and our training facilities. It means employers working with TAFE, with other employers and with unions to make sure we're training Australians for the jobs that we need. Our national vocational system doesn't just need tweaks; it's crying out for genuine reform and genuine commitment from this government to invest in TAFE and ensure that we are producing the apprentices and the trainees who can fill these occupations into the future. Yet this government refuses to deliver a genuine reform package that overhauls the training sector in Australia.

If the Liberals don't do something to fix this skills shortage and this crisis that they've created in vocational training in Australia, we could be in a situation where productivity continues to fall in Australia, where we don't get growth in particular jobs in this country, where we are forced to import more workers into the country because of the skills shortages and where our economy starts to go backwards. This Liberal government doesn't care enough or have the capacity to work hard to build a better post-school education system. Labor has been very critical of the role that this government has played in undermining TAFE and the value that TAFE had in promoting vocational education and training in our community. The effect of overzealous application of competition policy and privatisation in this sector has left it chronically underfunded, with devastating effects on the sector and, as I mentioned, 150,000 fewer apprentices. Fewer people taking on trades—that's their legacy in vocational training.

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