Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

As has been said by previous speakers, Labor will not oppose the National Skills Commissioner Bill 2020. One of the reasons we won't oppose it is that it sounds an awful lot like Skills Australia, which we established in 2008 and which then became the Australian Workplace and Productivity Agency in 2011. That agency analysed and reported on Australia's current, emerging and future workforce development needs. But, sadly, on taking office one of the first decisions by the Abbott Liberal government was to shut it down, because apparently we didn't need it anymore. Six years on we see the consequences of that decision. That wasn't the only decision that was made, but certainly that took away the ability to get reliable and independent analysis of our labour market and skills needs.

Labor won't oppose this bill. We do think there needs to be a body that provides advice about workforce needs, now and into the future, about pricing for VET courses, about the performance of the system for providing vocational education, about the issues that affect Australian and international labour markets. We look forward to the new National Skills Commissioner providing to the minister and the department advice on skills demand and all of those labour force and market issues. We on this side of the House believe in strong expert evidence and advice that informs our policy. Our skills and workforce development needs are no different than any other policy area that this parliament needs to make decisions about. But, unfortunately, what we've got here tonight is just a little adjustment. It's not really going very far to reform the vocational education system, and right now we all know that that system is absolutely vital if we are to recover from the economic shock that we've faced. If the COVID recovery is going to be one that doesn't just snap back to the problems we had before but takes us into a space where we deal with and address some of those issues, then the TAFE system, the vocational education system, is absolutely fundamental. There will be so many people looking to reskill and retrain as we move through this recession. TAFE is going to have to have a key role, so I hope this isn't the last piece of legislation or the last policy on vocational education that we see from those on the other side.

In the few months of the pandemic, we've already seen how important TAFE is as a support to many people, and it was terrific to see the fee-free short courses that were offered in New South Wales to help people who had lost their positions, through absolutely no fault of their own, and who already wanted to start reskilling so that they would be in a better position to get a job when the crisis finally eases. It was terrific to see a range of things offered, from administration skills, health and medical courses, leadership, business and, importantly, digital skills.

I just want to give some perspective about why a strong vocational education system is so important in areas like mine, on the outskirts of Sydney—peri-urban areas. Technicians and trade workers were the second most common occupations in the 2016 census for the electorate of Macquarie, and that represents about 15.6 per cent of employed people aged 15 and over. Another seven per cent of the population was attending technical or further education at the time of the census. This represents not just tradies; it represents businesses. These are people who are self-employed and have skilled themselves up. They have a skill that others don't have. They use that skill not just to benefit their clients, fix problems, create fantastic houses, create wonderful landscapes and help the horse racing industry in my area; they use it because they are building a business for their family. So we have a strong belief in the value of taking trade skills—and I'm glad that the member opposite does too.

Many of the young people I speak with, including during this COVID crisis, aren't aspiring to go to university. They want to do an apprenticeship or a traineeship. That's what they want. It's what their parents have done; it might not be what their parents have done, but they can see that it's a fantastic option for the skills that they have. But we know that getting an apprenticeship is harder than it has ever been, with 140,000 apprenticeships and traineeships having been lost in recent years. It's really concerning to see the modelling from the Mitchell Institute which suggests that one in every three Australians who had been planning to take on an apprenticeship could miss out as a result of the pandemic. That means the future generation of skilled trades men and women—and that means the building industry and so many industries—is really up in the air.

Sadly, the HomeBuilder program, based on the feedback I am getting and what the analysis is showing, is not going to be anything that fixes that problem. Unless there is significant policy development by those opposite, unless they have a plan—and we haven't seen it yet—the prediction is that the number of new apprenticeships and traineeships will fall by at least 30 per cent over the next two years. That is shameful. That would mean roughly 45,000 fewer apprentices a year for the end of the financial years of 2021 and 2022. If I'm an HSC student or a year 11 student hoping to do an apprenticeship, it's a really dim future that I'm looking at without some action by those opposite. In New South Wales alone we have lost close to 31,000 apprenticeships. With COVID-19 and losing apprenticeships at a rate of knots, I think those opposite need to be offering us much more than a National Skills Commissioner.

I hope those opposite will stand up and take note when they hear this piece of information: Australia has fewer apprentices and trainees now than when this government came to office. So you haven't added to the numbers; they've gone backwards. That's not something to be proud of. Under the last Labor government the number of apprentices and trainees never dropped below about 400,000. Remember, that was during a global financial crisis. Under this government, prior to COVID, they'd been hovering at around 260,000 or 270,000. The Prime Minister might think he looks good in his hard hat and high-vis vest, but he is overseeing a Liberal government that spent seven years creating a tradie crisis in Australia. And the $3 billion cut from TAFE and training has led to so many other shortages. The shortage of workers has been plugged by temporary visa workers. That is not a solution; it is a stopgap. The solution is to train up our young people and make it easier for older people to retrain.

I read with interest the comments recently by Gary Workman, the CEO of Global Apprenticeship Network, which collects the apprenticeship vacancy numbers. He says they have never fully recovered after the GST as employers turn to casual workers, subcontracting and 457 visas to make up the skills shortfall. So the data is showing what we all know, and that is that there has been no real solution put in place.

We've seen the growth in low-quality privately delivered courses under this government. That's put pressure on TAFE and providers who offer quality courses, and that's really put pressure on standards. It has real consequences for quality. Across the VET system we've seen a decline in outcomes for students, with dropping enrolments and low completion rates. I think what horrifies me most is the cost shifting. It's shifted totally to students, as they've been hit with fee increases and growing limitations on access, particularly for students in areas like mine. It's a disincentive for people to do extra training. We should be incentivising people to go towards vocational education, not making it harder for them. We want them to learn how to build a brick wall; we don't want to put one in front of them. But that is what is happening.

This government has also overseen what is the very nastiest of behaviour in the trade training sector, with so many people defrauded of funds they wanted to use to educate themselves and improve their lives. They were exploited, and it took those opposite far too long to act. The current government has spent the last seven years watching it all unfold and has done absolutely nothing about it. So when we see these little things coming back, yes, we welcome it, but I question their commitment. After seven years, this is just a very small piece of the puzzle.

I have to say, I listened really eagerly to the JobMaker announcement, thinking that the Prime Minister had really discovered TAFE and vocational education, but it turned out to be a fake. There is no new funding, no time line and no details. Honestly, go to Google and look for yourself. All you can find is the foreshadowing of the announcement. It is impossible to find any sliver of detail about what was actually announced. It really was just all froth and bubble.

By contrast, we have a really solid vision of how we improve peoples' lives by giving them access to the TAFE and vocational education system. In the 'jobs and future of work' speech delivered by Labor leader Anthony Albanese, last year, we stated very clearly our intention in government to establish Jobs and Skills Australia. We see that this independent statutory authority could work to provide a genuine partnership with business leaders, the big ones and the small ones—the small manufacturers, the small construction businesses in my community, the bakers and the hairdressers who really want to draw on TAFE for their apprentices.

We also need to be able to give employers the support they need to do just that. It takes time to share your knowledge and your skills. I know as an employer that it's sometimes easier to do it yourself, but I pay real tribute to the employers who take the time to have apprentices. I was speaking with Nick Schwarz, from Wentworth Falls, who has high praise for the TAFE teacher who trains the apprentices who work in Nick's bakery. He said they're responsive to his needs, the demands of his business and the realities of what it's like to be a baker in Wentworth Falls making some of the most amazing and fattening doughnuts. TAFE is made up of incredible people who pass on their skills to the next generation, skills they've acquired over a lifetime in their sector, whether it's as an electrician, a roof builder, a concreter or a hairdresser. If it's Wentworth Falls TAFE, it can be in the disability sector, in outdoor education or as a pastry chef. If it's Richmond, it's caring for animals or horticulture or working in the horse industry. I think we need to see our local TAFEs offering more courses in their local areas. Certainly, the specialties have centralised and concentrated. While that can work really well in some sectors of the industry, there are a lot of subjects you can't study within cooee of my electorate.

We are now experiencing one of the greatest economic challenges and transformations of our lives. We're facing choices about how to go forward, and in Western Sydney there are huge opportunities. There are big construction projects underway, which need to be worked on by local workers not by imports from other states or beyond. We have a wonderful opportunity at Richmond TAFE and Western Sydney University, side by side—the opportunity to really see those two sectors work collaboratively. There is a wonderful proposal that is currently being put forward to build on the existing greenhouse, which does protected cropping. The university is looking at upscaling that and creating a logistics hub. This would provide jobs, globally competitive production and logistics research. It would allow us to really revolutionise what we're doing in Western Sydney around food distribution, building the supply chain capacity and closing the gaps that we have. These are really practical things that would have huge benefits for local manufacturers, and I would urge the government to get behind those proposals. If we continue down the road being laid by the Liberal government, with their track record of cuts rather than investment, the impact on TAFEs and apprenticeships—and, therefore, the economy—is going to be devastating.

I want to finish with a quote from Maxine Sharkey from the Australian Education Union:

Right now TAFE is the only institution ready to meet the challenge of rebuilding Australia's workforce. TAFE must be the government's preferred solution …

I hope the government hears that message.

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