Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Amendment (Governance and Other Matters) Bill 2020 and the shadow assistant minister's amendment. There is a desperate need for reform in our training sector. After seven years of incompetent Liberal government, including cuts of more than $3 billion to the industry, Australia's TAFE network is a shambles. It can't meet training demands, courses are not contemporary and they don't align with industry needs.

We have 140,000 fewer trainees and apprentices, and there are critical shortages for key industries, like carpentry and plumbing, which are central to our construction sector—a sector which is absolutely essential to our crawling out of the recession that we are now in. In fact, there has been a nearly 10 per cent increase in the number of occupations facing skills shortages under the government. Between January and April this year, there was a 73 per cent drop in advertisements for apprentices, and COVID only really hit the shores of this country in March. It's hardly a record to be proud of after seven years in government. There have been $3 billion in cuts and 140,000 fewer apprentices and trainees, and we hear reports from the Master Builders Association that, if nothing changes, there will be another 100,000 fewer apprentices and trainees by the end of the year.

The Morrison government has created a training environment where more people drop out of apprenticeships than complete them. Meanwhile, our unemployment rate, particularly amongst youth, is high. Last year's Brotherhood of St Laurence report into youth unemployment showed that, in Tasmania, the south-east region had a youth unemployment rate of 17.8 per cent, making it the sixth worst in the country. The Greater Hobart region was No. 9, with 16.9 per cent youth unemployment, and the north and north-west were No. 16, with 15 per cent youth unemployment—hardly records to be proud of. How can Australia, a country with 30 years of uninterrupted economic growth until this year, be experiencing a youth unemployment crisis at the same time as a serious skills shortage? The answer is serious endemic neglect that the nation's training sector has experienced under seven years of an incompetent Liberal government.

TAFE has a critical role in Australia. It is the public provider of skills and training, and its graduates are invaluable to our productivity and growth as a country. Yet the government, after years of watching the sector stumble—indeed, it's put its own foot out at times—is failing to properly resource it. It's refusing to do the hard work necessary to restore the reputation of our TAFE system, and the country is seeing poorly regulated, expensive and, in too many cases, downright dodgy RTOs fill the vacuum. We've all read the stories: students finish without graduating, certificates are not recognised by industry, there are enormous fees, there are poor skills and students graduate unable to do the jobs that they've been trained in.

We've seen RTOs time and again fined or closed, yet the government has been too slow and flat-footed to address the issue. It's been a total abrogation of responsibility. Firstly, it means a generation of Australians cannot access the pathway they need to fulfil their potential and participate in the career they want to pursue. Secondly, it puts at risk our nation's long-term prosperity and growth.

We should not rely on skilled workers coming in on temporary visas when there are people across Australia, including in my own electorate, who are unemployed or underemployed. There is absolutely a place for skilled migration, particularly long-term permanent migration. There's a place for short-term visa migration as well, through backpackers, for some skills that can't be filled locally in a short amount of time. But, frankly, under this government we've seen a massive increase in the number of short-term visas. When we've got a huge pool of underemployed or unemployed youth that require these jobs, that's where the first focus should be.

Thirdly, we compromise our ability to compete internationally and use the skills, knowledge and innovation of our own people. Australia has always punched above its weight when it comes to skills and training and what that means for our contribution overseas. But this reputation is rapidly diminishing as our TAFE system becomes less effective and less relevant.

The legislation before us is the first tranche of a set of reforms that responds to the recommendations of recent reviews in the VET sector—the 2019 expert review of Australia's VET system, the Joyce review; and the 2018 review of the National VET Regulator Act 2011, the Braithwaite review. This bill seeks to reform the operation of the Australian Skills Quality Authority—ASQA—the national VET regulator, to strengthen its powers, enhance protections for students and improve transparency to assist RTO compliance.

The amendments in the bill largely implement recommendations of independent reviews that have been supported by the sector. Stakeholders in the sector supported the intention of the bill but noted their frustration with a lack of consultation on the legislation. There remains some uncertainty as to how many of the changes will work in practice. Labor will not oppose this bill, but we are particularly concerned that the result of ASQA moving to a full minister-directed cost-recovery model may mean that some providers may pass the cost of ASQA services onto students. This is contradictory to the recommendations of the Joyce review specifically, which stated:

It is important that ASQA be adequately resourced to perform the guidance and educative role and to perform its role more generally. In many jurisdictions there is an understood difference between parts of the regulator’s activity that should be directly funded by the regulated through cost recovery arrangements versus what are broader activities for the 'public good, and should therefore be government funded.

So we do have concerns that this is an attempt by the government to cost-shift, to gouge out of students the costs that the regulator and government would normally bear. In light of this, it is important that we monitor the ongoing adequacy of funding to ASQA to ensure that it can continue to perform regulatory and educative tasks.

Labor support a fair and considered approach to ASQA reforms. We will support changes that improve ASQA's capacity to ensure responsiveness to students, communities and employers, but we will reject changes that attempt to weaken ASQA's regulatory framework. Labor have always backed and will continue to back a strong, comprehensive regulatory, compliance and education framework for ASQA. Following the widespread rorting of the VET FEE-HELP program, ASQA's work is crucial in attempting to rid the sector of low-quality and unscrupulous providers. We will continue to monitor the implementation of these and other forthcoming amendments to the regulatory arrangements to ensure they do not in any way compromise regulatory standards.

Broadly speaking, this bill is really a mild administrative tweak from a third-term government that simply refuse to deliver a genuine reform package to overhaul the vocational training sector. Real reform and real funding is needed, but what we are getting now is essentially new stationery and a slap of paint. The Liberals have slashed funding to TAFE and training—$3 billion. They've let apprentice numbers fall off a cliff and they've presided over a national shortage of tradies, apprenticeships and trainees at the same time as there is massive unemployment for young people.

As well as the $3 billion that they've ripped out of the system, they've underspent $900 million of money they budgeted towards TAFE. They had actually put it in the budget. They intended to spend $900 million but didn't. They will pat themselves on the back for that, saying, 'Aren't we good economic managers, saving a bit of money that we didn't need to spend?' I liken it to a car. When you run a car, you maintain your car. You spend money on the maintenance. You're not a good manager of your car if you're not spending money on the service and you end up with bald tyres and a dirty oil filter. It's the same with the TAFE and training senator. It's not like we have this brand-new, shiny-looking TAFE and training sector that's humming and working really well and is world's best practice. It's falling apart at the seams. It's not doing the job it's meant to, and there's $900 million that has been budgeted to spend on it just sitting in the bank gathering dust. That $900 million could be making a real difference to the quality of TAFE and training in Australia.

Let me give you an example of just how little those opposite value vocational education for our young people in Tasmania. In November last year, my office passed on correspondence from Sorell Council to the Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business. The council was seeking federal funding towards the expansion of the Sorell campus of the South East Trade Training Centre. The trade training centres were an invention of John Howard. I think they were called something else at the time and, when Labor came in, we renamed them. But essentially these were a Howard construction. They're good. They were a good thing. When the Abbott government came in they dropped them like a hot potato. The Sorell campus was one of the last ones ever built under the Labor government. The new Liberal MP who came in in 2013 opened it, even though Labor built it.

And it's working a treat! It is absolutely humming along. The Sorell trade training centre, under the leadership of Rick Birch, is a great success. He's doing all sorts of courses there. He has mature aged and young people. He has it humming like a top, but it's running out of space. As good as it is, it needs space. The lack of facilities at the Sorell trade training centre are limiting its day-to-day operations, with some courses having to be delivered off-site. So I asked the minister's office if I could meet with the relevant adviser to discuss the council's funding request. The response? I'm still waiting—nothing. Silence. It's a legitimate request from a regional training provider that is being completely disregarded by the minister and by the government.

According to new modelling released this month by the National Australian Apprenticeships Association, Australia is set to lose a further 100,000 apprentices and trainees this year. It's a massive 35 per cent drop. Tasmania is set to lose 2,107 apprentices and trainees this year. It's no wonder that our nation has a shortage of bricklayers, plumbers, hairdressers, panelbeaters and other critical tradespeople. The number of people taking up construction trades last year plunged by nearly 12 per cent—further proof that the Liberals' cuts to TAFE had created a tradie shortage, even before the coronavirus.

This Prime Minister loves to put his arm around a tradie—somebody in a high-vis vest—and to make out that he's the best friend of tradies. Well, I think that, as the former Prime Minister Mr Turnbull can attest, if this Prime Minister has his arm around your shoulder then watch out. He's not your best friend. Watch out! If Scott Morrison has his arm around your shoulder, be very, very careful. This Prime Minister likes to put his arm around the shoulder of a tradie and make out that he is their best friend, but he doesn't tell them: 'Hey, by the way, I've cut $3 billion out of TAFE, I've underspent $900 million that was already budgeted, and there are 140,000 fewer apprenticeships and traineeships under my government.' He doesn't tell tradies that when he goes out to the pubs and the building sites. So a little bit of truth-telling is required there. The Australian Industry Group says that youth unemployment will skyrocket if there isn't a substantial increase in federal government support. So it's all very well to talk about construction projects and renovations, but you need tradies to build them and this Prime Minister has no plan for that.

I'll just come briefly to the 'HomeBlunder' scheme, which is related to the terms of reference for the amendments in this bill, in the failure for trades. The irony here is that, despite the inattention paid to vocational education by this government over the past seven years, it's now expecting those same industries that are suffering from a tradie crisis to pull this economy out of this recession—the first recession in 30 years. The HomeBuilder scheme—the 'HomeBlunder' scheme—is far too little, too late. Housing construction work is about to fall off a cliff, and the Morrison government has produced an ill-conceived and inadequate scheme, with no detail on how to access it. Let me be clear: the 25 grand for new home builds gets two thumbs up. They won't get an argument from me about that. I think that's a good thing and, largely, what Labor would have done. Twenty-five grand for new home builds—no worries. But renovations? A minimum of $150,000 for a renovation before you can get 25 grand? That's ridiculous. It locks out so many people—nearly everybody in Tasmania—from accessing that money. That renovation side of it will do nothing to assist the trades in Tasmania.

Tradies deserve better. Homebuyers deserve better. Home renovators certainly deserve better. We would have got a much bigger bang for our buck if they had allowed smaller renovation projects to be done. They would still employ tradies and still have carpenters out there fixing up kitchens. There has been an absolute failure by this government, and 'HomeBlunder' is emblematic of the total failure of this government in the trades. (Time expired)

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