Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Skills and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to thank the member for Adelaide for his question. Yes, he's absolutely right: today the parliament passed the Jobs and Skills Australia legislation. That is, of course, a commitment, an election promise, by this Prime Minister and by this government, to deliver a body that can provide the right sort of advice to ensure that we have the skills that we need in this country. What we do know is we have just inherited not only $1 trillion of debt but a massive skills deficit. It doesn't matter where you look across the economy and labour market, whatever sector of the economy it is, we have problems in terms of supply of skills. The National Skills Commission's last report said that we have almost doubled the occupations on the shortage list from 153 to 286 in 12 months, and that's why it's absolutely critical that we move very fast on this matter.

I'd like to thank the members and senators who worked with me on this legislation across the parliament. We really need to move quickly, as I say. We need to deploy every avenue we have to find the skills that our economy needs. I need to acknowledge the ministers for home affairs and immigration, who are seeking to restore skilled migration pathways that have been absolutely ruined as a result of the efforts of those opposite. I mean, they left an entire mess. Quite understandably they closed the borders, but why would they ever not support visa holders in this country so that they would leave in droves and leave a skills deficit in our economy? That's exactly what happened.

See this speech in context