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

What a disaster this government has been for vocational training and skills development in Australia! The record says it all. They've slashed $3 billion from TAFE over the six years they've been in government. They cancelled the Trade Training Centres in Schools Program that was working so well within our schools and providing a pathway into trades for students to begin their apprenticeship in years 11 and 12 and get a foothold in a trade in this country. This government cancelled that program within our schools. There are 140,000 fewer apprenticeships, and 140,000 fewer apprentices and trainees, in this country since this government got elected. They massively increased TAFE fees, in concert with Liberal governments at the state level throughout the country. Some of these increases in TAFE fees were in the vicinity of 400 to 500 per cent, making it completely unaffordable for many young Australians to look to go into a trade into the future. They've cut courses at local TAFEs. Most TAFE colleges now specialise in particular areas and have cut out a lot of their courses, so a lot of young people looking for an apprenticeship in a particular trade will have to travel literally hundreds of kilometres to another region or across to the other end of a city to actually look at getting into a TAFE course because of the cuts that have been made to particular courses in TAFE colleges throughout the country. And, of course, we all know that they cut a number of teaching positions in those TAFE colleges as a result. That's the result of a massive underspend on skills and vocational education and training in this country.

The results speak for themselves. We've got massive skills shortages in Australia at the moment, where a number of employers in particular industries simply can't find the workers that they want to put on to perform roles in their businesses because the skilled workers simply aren't there in Australia. They're not there because they weren't trained. They weren't given the opportunity to take on a particular trade under this government, to the tune of 140,000 fewer apprenticeships.

But that's alright. This government's answer is: 'Don't worry about that. Don't worry about the fact that we have skills shortages. Don't worry about the fact that employers can't find skilled workers. We'll just bring them in. We'll import them from overseas.' That's exactly what they have been doing. They've been importing workers on temporary visas to fill the skills shortages that they've created by underinvesting in vocational training and education in this country. That's the reason, or one of the reasons, why the Australian economy, pre COVID, had been growing under this government. It was not because of business investment, which has fallen through the floor, not because of improvements in productivity, which is actually going backwards under this government, and not because of innovation, which has been stifled by this government as well, but because the Australian population was increasing on the back of this government importing workers to fill the skills shortages that its policies have created. That's the sort of economy that has developed under this LNP government, and it's now showing during this crisis, because many of those employers now face the prospect of not being able to import those workers anymore because of COVID restrictions. They're seeing the handbrake that's going to be brought to their businesses by this government's inadequate policies when it comes to vocational education and training.

All this will have a dramatic effect on our economy, and it has been doing so to date. As I said earlier, we've had skills shortages, which has resulted in the importation of workers, and all of that has been a handbrake on productivity. For the first time since records were kept about labour productivity in this country, we've had a fall in labour productivity. Under this government, labour productivity in Australia, for the first time, has actually fallen; it's gone backwards. That means the amount of income being produced per worker in Australia under this government pre-COVID was actually less then it was a year ago. That says everything about this government. They claim to be good for the economy. Well, they've been the exact opposite. Labour productivity has actually fallen, and that's been a handbrake on economic growth. That's why we've had this underperformance of economic growth. That's why we've had below-trend economic growth in Australia—and that has resulted in no real wage increases for workers in this country for many, many years and in many of them struggling to make ends meet with some of the highest levels of household debt in the world.

That's the sort of economy that has developed under this LNP government. There is no investment and no vision for the development of skills in Australia, because there's no investment in vocational education and training to deliver those skills to ensure employers have the skills necessary to make Australia an innovative nation, one that continues to grow and one that continues to be more productive. The opposite has occurred under this government. That's their record. And now there's been a push from industry about the economic cliff they see coming because they can't import workers anymore. They have pushed this government to look at the issue of skills. If this government thinks that by establishing a Skills Commissioner they can fix all of the problems in vocational training and skill shortages in this country that they and their policies have produced, they are kidding themselves and it demonstrates how out of touch this government really is.

Labor will not oppose this bill. We won't oppose a bill that establishes a statutory body that looks at the demand for skills in this country and workforce development. This bill will establish the office of the National Skills Commissioner to provide to the minister and the secretary of the department advice on skills demand, the labour market and workforce development issues. We'll always ensure that we are working for strong expert policy evidence and advice, but the creation of a National Skills Commissioner is another bandaid from this government for a vocational education and training system that is fundamentally flawed and broken. It is fundamentally broken, and this ain't gonna fix it. We need much more than the development of a Skills Commissioner, nestled within a government department, to fix what is wrong with vocational education and skills development in this country.

Our TAFE system and the vocational education system are under enormous pressure as a result of this Liberal government's poor and incoherent policies and massive cuts. As I said, we've already seen $3 billion worth of cuts to expenditure. We've seen 140,000 fewer apprentices and trainees in this country. And now we've got more modelling, from the National Australian Apprenticeships Association, warning that 100,000 more apprentices and trainees will go by December unless this government does something serious about vocational education and training in this country. This is a situation that's going to be much worse than the global financial crisis. As I mentioned earlier, at least the borders were still open during the GFC and workers could still come to this country where there were skill shortages. But for the foreseeable future that's not going to be the case, and that's going to be a big handbrake on activity and economic growth and getting our economy going again and rebooting it and getting people back into work.

But this government doesn't seem to care about that. Its philosophy is to leave vocational education and training to the private market and they will sort it out. Well, we've seen what happens with that in the vocational training sector in Australia. We've had some horrific stories of people being coaxed into taking on courses they could never complete. They have been offered inducements to take on those courses, and then the provider picks up the government payment and the student falls out of the course and never completes it.

We need a coherent set of policies in Australia that really focuses on the needs of industry around skills development, working with a fully funded TAFE sector and other providers to make sure that the courses are tailored to the needs of the employers, provide the skills for the workforce of the future and ensure that people who want to go into the traditional trades of carpentry, bricklaying, plumbing, hairdressing and others get the opportunity to do so at a reasonable price and within their local vicinity so that they can access that training. Well, this government has no plan for that. This government has no plan to provide those opportunities for young Australians.

The situation with apprenticeships and trainees in Australia has gone from bad to worse. The Australian Industry Group is now warning that youth unemployment will skyrocket if there isn't a substantial increase in government support for vocational training in this country. We know that between January and April this year there had already been a 73 per cent fall in apprenticeship job ads in Australia as a result of the COVID crisis. Because of the cuts that have been undertaken by this government, it's no wonder that we now have a shortage of those traditional trades that many Australians could have relied upon in the past as being good, secure jobs for a lifetime. Those jobs are now disappearing. I'm talking about a shortage of bricklayers, plumbers, hairdressers, panel beaters and other critical trades that basically keep an economy going and keep it growing, provide housing and provide manufacturing jobs for this country. Those trades are all under pressure and their industries are all having skills shortages because of this government's approach.

Australia now has fewer apprentices and trainees than when this government came to office. Despite the fact that we have a growing population and a growing need from industry and business for more apprentices, we've actually got fewer than when this government came to office. That statistic alone says everything about this government's commitment to vocational education and training, to providing that option for young Australians, to growing our economy and to creating a manufacturing base into the future. The commitment from this government is simply not there.

At the moment there are more people dropping out of vocational education and training than there are people who finish it. Again, that's an indictment of and a blight on this government's record. By locking Australians out of vocational education and training, the Liberals are locking Australians out of jobs, and that is inexcusable in this type of distressed economic environment. We're experiencing one of the greatest economic transformations of our lifetime and we're forced to make choices about how we go forward, but this Liberal government wants to do more of the same when it comes to vocational education and training, and that's simply not good enough.

Labor are offering an alternative. We went into the last election with a series of policies to invest more in TAFE, to invest more in vocational education and training and to boost the number of apprentices and trainees. The Labor leader, in his 'Jobs and the Future of Work' speech in October last year, announced Labor's intention, if we were elected, to establish Jobs and Skills Australia. Unlike the government's National Skills Commission, proposed in this bill, Labor's Jobs and Skills Australia would be an independent statutory authority providing a genuine partnership with business, both large and small; state and territory governments; unions; education providers; and, most importantly, those that understand the regions, ensuring that there was a dialogue between business, governments and unions in Australia about where skills shortages are and about developing the training mechanisms and the investment in those industries to ensure that there is skills development in the future through vocational education and training. It would not simply be leaving it up to the private sector and the market to work it out but would be actively ensuring that you have policies that promote vocational education and training and skills development in this country. That will be Labor's approach, unlike this government's, if we are elected at the next election.

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