Daniel Mulino (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

There is no bigger issue for our economy and our society at the at the moment than the skills shortage that we face. That is why the Jobs and Skills Australia Bill 2022 was the first bill introduced by this government, that is why the issues raised by this bill were central to the Jobs and Skills Summit that was so successfully held last week and that is why it is so important that this bill passes through this House and why I'm so pleased to speak in favour of it.

The skills shortage that we are facing creates many issues for our economy. First and foremost, it adds to already existing inflationary pressures which in and of themselves are creating so many issues for households and businesses across our community. Secondly, the skills shortage is impeding the growth of businesses and corporations throughout our economy and hampering the ability of not-for-profits and, indeed, government to provide services. This is something which I'm all too familiar with, having held a roundtable in my electorate in the lead-up to the Jobs and Skills Summit. I heard from businesses that are very successful already and wish to grow but are not able to. So, clearly, the skills shortage we are experiencing is a significant handbrake on our economy at this point.

The other dimension of the skills shortage which I think is of first order importance is that it means that we are not matching people to positions in the way that we should. When the labour market is not working effectively, we aren't using people's skills and we aren't giving people the opportunities that they deserve to reach their potential in the best way possible in the workforce and, more broadly, in society.

This skills shortage is having so many negative effects both for our economy and socially. We see this in a range of statistics. Seventeen per cent of businesses reported recently that they did not have enough employees. Many of those businesses are not able to easily acquire the employees through the labour market that they need in order to grow. This is a first-order-of-importance issue and it's not something that we're going to be able to turn around immediately, but this government has taken action on a whole range of fronts already. As has been discussed, very broadly, there are a whole raft, dozens, of positive actions that have come out of the Jobs and Skills Summit. But there is so much more to do, and this is an example of the longer term changes that are needed in order to get our job market working more effectively.

Another issue which I think is worth putting on the table for context is that our labour market is changing. We have this short- and medium-term skills shortage, but we also have a labour market that is changing, where people are going to be expected to have many more jobs or occupations throughout their lives. It is estimated by some that Australians will have as many as 13 occupations across their lifetimes, very different to the experience that so many had in the period following World War II and before that. If you're under 25, others have estimated you are likely to have 17 employers across your career. This is, again, reinforcing the importance of our training institutions. Our training institutions are going to be front and centre when it comes to overcoming the skills shortage, because they will be critical to training people up who can fill the positions our job market is currently unable to fill. Our training institutions, our VET institutions and, indeed, our higher education institutions are going to be absolutely critical when it comes to helping people navigate a career and a life cycle where they have so many more jobs and occupations.

Now, of course, what I talked about there is a raft of statistics, which can become very sterile, but what I'm also very conscious of is that what we're talking about here are opportunities and quality of life for real people. My interaction with the skills sector of late has reinforced that to me. When I walk around Victoria University's St Albans campus and see the cybersecurity training facility that is giving kids an opportunity to be trained in cert III and IV courses in cyber, what I see is people being given an opportunity to enter the labour market in areas where their training will allow them to get good-quality jobs and in a sector that is going to be growing for decades to come.

When I was fortunate to represent the Minister for Skills and Training, Minister O'Connor, recently at William Angliss, I met somebody in the kitchen who was providing a remarkable lunch for all of the people in attendance to celebrate skills week, and she was from my electorate. It reinforced to me that what we're talking about isn't just numbers and statistics; when we talk about fixing the skills shortage and training people up so they can take advantage of opportunities in the labour force, we're talking about giving people opportunities. These are people who are just finishing school and trying to enter the labour market. It is such a difficult hurdle. And, of course, so many people need to change their career. So many people's firm might have closed, or their skills might have been automated out of existence. So many people are in industries that might be in decline. There are often middle-aged people who are particularly vulnerable; they also need a well-functioning labour market and need skills.

For me, what we're talking about today is so important for individuals and for families—and often for the most vulnerable individuals and families. To get this right means incredible things for people in electorates like mine and the people that I've met at skills functions and training facilities. Indeed, employers reinforce that to me every day that I'm in my electorate.

What does it mean to set up Jobs and Skills Australia, an entity that will provide advice to government along many dimensions but which for me will, critically, dramatically improve the quality of data that is provided to government. This is an area where data is absolutely paramount. Why is that? Sometimes we describe different parts of our economy as markets. I'm probably more guilty of that than most, being an economist by training. But I'll not describe this as a market; I will describe it as an ecosystem where a number of actors have to make decisions that are very complicated. The people who are seeking training—students-to-be or existing students—are making decisions about what courses to do that are based upon their expectation of jobs in the future, on their judgement as to what types of jobs they will like and their expectations as to where the economy will evolve in the future. Those choices are very difficult for individuals to make. The more information individuals have about where jobs exist and are ready for people to enter and the more information students have about where jobs and industries are emerging and growing, the better the decisions they will be able to make. It is absolutely critical for individuals, students or students-to-be that they have the best information possible.

Then, of course, there are the providers of services. It is absolutely critical that the system works well so they have the best information about which jobs are emerging. For a TAFE or a VET provider in a community to know that a large employer or a sector is growing in their community means that they can pivot and offer a course that provides students with the skills necessary to enter that growing firm or cluster of firms. It is absolutely critical that we provide the best possible data to the people providing training.

Next, of course, there's government. Government needs the best data possible in terms of both the existing labour market and also, of course, forecasting where the labour is going—an extremely difficult thing to do. Forecasts are extremely important for government because government is often making long-term investments. It is critical that the government makes those investments with the best possible understanding of how the labour market is evolving.

Jobs and Skills Australia is being set up to help all of those different parts of the labour market ecosystem—students and people who might soon be students, the providers of services and, of course, government, which is a critical funder of so much of the training that goes on in the sector. Of course, employers are another important part of that. These Jobs and Skills Australia bills will put in place the first stage of a two-stage process. There are a number of things it is absolutely imperative we get underway right now. This legislation will do that. It will establish the machinery of Jobs and Skills Australia, it will establish the Jobs and Skills Australia Director and it will set up an organisation that can hit the ground running and provide a number of important services, such as producing data, producing workforce forecasts, producing capacity studies, informing the public and putting in place mechanisms whereby the data that is produced can be not only provided to government but also shared with users, providers of services and employers. That is critical. There's not much point producing high-quality data if you don't set up mechanisms to share that data.

In addition to Jobs and Skills Australia being set up so that it can hit the ground running and provide data where needed immediately—and there are a number of different areas where government is undertaking services where this data will be needed immediately—it's also critical that there is a two-stage process because there are elements of the ultimate architecture that the government wants to consult on. There is going to be exhaustive consultation on a number of elements of the ultimate governance architecture that government will now consult on before a second tranche of legislation is introduced. It is absolutely important that we start this process. We will see results from JSA being implemented very quickly indeed, which is very necessary.

I think it's also important to put on the record that in this first tranche of legislation Jobs and Skills Australia will replace the functions undertaken by the National Skills Commission and will expand on those functions to include a broader and more strategic focus. The work of Jobs and Skills Australia will be economywide and will not be limited to VET. This will be absolutely imperative to the advisory functions, the data-collecting functions and the forecasting functions that it undertakes.

The legislation does not limit the scope of the work that Jobs and Skills Australia will undertake. Clearly it will set out a number of functions that Jobs and Skills Australia will have to undertake in relation to informing the VET sector and informing those people who interact with the VET sector—students, employers and service providers. It is important to put on the record that the way in which it will operate will not be limited in scope and that Jobs and Skills Australia will have the capacity to look at the jobs market and the skills required in our economy much more broadly. It will be able to look at, for example, the university sector and the way in which skills are developing and the demand for skills is changing right across the economy.

That is absolutely critical because we have an economy where people are going to be moving between different types of post secondary school training. Some students will have an interaction with the university sector and then have an interaction with the VET sector midcareer to obtain some additional skills if they need to pivot. Some people will start with VET and undertake further VET down the track. We need an advisor to government—Jobs and Skills Australia—that is capable of broadening its focus where necessary.

This is extremely important legislation. This is an extremely important institution that we are establishing today. It is an overdue reform. It is critical at this point in the economic cycle that this government prioritises significant, meaningful, substantive reform in this area.

As I mentioned at the start of this speech, we can talk about any number of macroeconomic statistics in relation to why the skills shortage is so important in the economy at the moment: it is inflationary; it is hampering growth in a number of sectors; it is limiting the opportunities for individuals in a number of sectors; and it is creating suboptimal and inefficient matches in a number of areas. But, for me, moving beyond these statistics, there are the individual stories as well. These are the people I've been meeting in my electorate in my everyday interactions but also even more intensely in the lead-up to the Jobs and Skills Summit. It's for those people, who need opportunities, who need to get the best possible start after finishing school or who need opportunities after they've suffered an unfortunate mid-career disruption, that we need to do everything we can as a government to get our labour force working more efficiently. I'm very pleased to speak in favour of this bill today.

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