Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Jobs and Skills Australia Amendment Bill 2023, the second tranche of legislation related to Jobs and Skills Australia. As a coalition we've been constructive when it comes to Jobs and Skills Australia and supported its establishing legislation. But ongoing support is not guaranteed and, as an opposition, we will not write a blank cheque when it comes to creating taxpayer funded board roles that are set aside for union representatives.

This bill seeks to finalise governance arrangements for the agency, which sits within the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations. Jobs and Skills Australia will be charged with identifying skill needs across the economy and developing policy responses to build Australia's workforce. It will play a key role in advising Australia's migration program, as well as providing advice about how to reform our skills and education systems. This is really important work.

Workforce shortages and skill gaps are critical issues in my electorate. Hospitals are struggling for doctors, nurses and allied health staff; aged-care homes are unable to recruit the workers they need; industry is desperate for workers; agriculture is having trouble recruiting; and schools are struggling to put teachers in front of every class. The list goes on, and we need solutions. For many sectors, sourcing workers from overseas is the short-term solution but it remains problematic. My predecessor, the former member for Nicholls Damian Drum, fought very hard to establish a Goulburn Valley Designated Area Migration Agreement—a DAMA. A DAMA is an agreement between the Australian government and a designated area that enables businesses to address specific labour shortages within that area. DAMAs ensure that employers recruit Australian citizens and permanent residents as a first priority, but then recruit overseas workers to fill gaps where needed.

The GV DAMA, one of only 12 in Australia, includes the local government areas of Greater Shepparton, Moira Shire and Campaspe Shire. It commenced with a moderate 56 eligible occupations to address acute labour shortages, and it can endorse up to 200 additional occupations per year over the five-year term of the agreement. It has been requested that an additional 115 occupations be included in the Goulburn Valley DAMA table of approved occupations following a review at the end of year 1. These were submitted last October but are still pending approval, and this has left many businesses in limbo. What should be a streamlined process to meet urgent need has proved to be anything but and, of the 50 occupations endorsed, only six visa applications have been approved since April 2022. DAMA applications applied for by employers were being approved in three weeks but are now taking three months, and the visas are taking another four months. It's frustrating that a scheme designed to address critical workforce shortages in my electorate has become bogged down in bureaucracy.

Our migration system does need reform, and the Minister for Home Affairs has detailed in recent weeks the challenges of reforming our migration system to make it fit for purpose. I appreciate that it's complex and cumbersome, and I acknowledge that there seems to be some genuine intent to reform the system. One of the first actions of the government in response to the independent review of the migration system led by Dr Martin Parkinson, is to increase the temporary skilled migration income threshold from $53,900 to $70,000 annually from 1 July. Of the 50 occupations endorsed under the GV DAMA only six had remuneration of over $70,000, so we will end up with workers recruited from overseas being paid more than their Australian colleagues. The unions would argue that what we need to do is increase everyone's pay, but they're not the ones who have to run businesses or be concerned with profitability. They will, however have a big say in the running of Jobs and Skills Australia.

This bill establishes the ministerial advisory board of the Jobs and Skills Australia agency, mandating the following: a chair; two members representing the interests of states and territories; three members representing the employee organisations, which you can bet your bottom dollar will be union officials; and three members representing employer organisations—and there can be up to four additional members. The bill also widens the remit of Jobs and Skills Australia to include the impact of workplace arrangements. It's another board stacked with the government's union mates.

The opposition wants to remove the mandating of three members of employee organisations, or unions, on the ministerial advisory board of Jobs and Skills Australia and instead mandate the inclusion of a small business representative and two rural, regional and remote representatives. The ministerial advisory board should also have representation from each state territory. This is a much more balanced and sensible approach and, under these arrangements, the government would still be able to appoint officials from unions as general members of the board but they would not have positions earmarked for them. Labor have said that they would end the jobs-for-mates culture, yet here they are trying to legislate jobs for their mates and their paymasters. This is important work and it shouldn't be clouded by the government attempting to do favours for their mates in the union movement.

One business that has achieved some outcomes under the GV DAMA is PJ's Concrete Pumping in Shepparton. I see the trucks, with very happy workers on board, rolling past my electorate office all the time. Peter Don, the director of PJ's, is also happy. He said:

GV DAMA has provided us with a new pathway to appease labour shortages and meet the demands of our industry. Not only does it provide benefits for our business, but it allows our regional community to realise its true economic potential.

As we know, you can't realise your true economic potential without staff.

It's not only migration; it's long-term solutions. It is my experience that long-term solutions are best when they are developed in the regions by the regions and government works with them to make them happen. One example—and this is yet to be funded, unfortunately—is the Goulburn Valley clinical health school. This is a partnership between Goulburn Valley Health, the hospital that is predominantly in the Greater Shepparton area in my electorate, and La Trobe University. It deserves the support of this government.

We need so many more nurses, midwives and allied health staff than the region can attract or recruit from overseas. The clinical health school is designed to train our workforce in the region where they will stay and work. It follows on from a great initiative of the previous coalition government—the University of Melbourne's school of rural health cooperating with the La Trobe University to offer an undergraduate biomedicine degree. This means that a young person from the region—they might not want to go to Melbourne to study, they might not be able to go to Melbourne to study or they might not be able to afford to go to Melbourne to study—can do a Bachelor of Biomedical Science in the region at La Trobe University and then move to a postgraduate degree, which is called the Doctor of Medicine, offered at the school of rural health in Shepparton. This is an end-to-end medical degree. We're going to have the first of these young graduates coming out at the end of 2025. At this stage there will be 40 new doctors in regional areas. These regional kids going to regional universities are going to fill that critical gap or shortage of health professionals in the region.

It's a great initiative. It is a commonsense approach to the jobs and skills shortage. It came from people in the regions coming up with ideas and working together with government to deliver them. That's why it's so important that we have regional and rural representatives on this Jobs and Skills Australia board. We need more solutions like that that are going to deliver outcomes and not just do reviews and, frankly, become a bit of a talkfest. The regions should have an opportunity to solve their own problems and to implement their own solutions.

We don't have ag visas to provide workers for the agriculture sector. It was a coalition initiative that Labor opposed, so we're not going to get anything like an ag visa. The agriculture industry is very disappointed about that. I urge those opposite to come up with something. If you want to call it something different—not 'ag visa', because that was too aligned with us—go for your life, but come up with something that delivers workers for regions that are growing the food that all Australians eat.

I note that there's the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme—and it's important—and that there's some extra money in the budget for PALM, which is a good thing, but that doesn't suit every agricultural industry. An example is the dairy industry. I was in Picola recently. Picola is a beautiful little community near a place called Nathalia up towards the Murray River in my electorate. I was there to talk to the young Filipino people who are working on a pathway to permanent residency. I talked to them about the dairy industry. One guy told me it's his dream job. Not only is it his dream job but his family are living in Nathalia and are all employed and the kids are going to school. It's that great story of migration to regional areas that we all know so well.

Jobs and Skills Australia needs input from regional and rural areas to make these good decisions and to listen to people in the regions about what works in the regions and not have it dictated by union officials, quite frankly, or Canberra bureaucrats. Now that the PALM scheme exists but the ag visa has gone, the dairy industry must navigate the 482 temporary skills shortage visa and the DAMA for Nicholls. And both currently have shortcomings that need to be addressed.

So we need a longer-term plan. We have a huge shortage of skilled and semiskilled workers in the regions as well as the cities. It is important, for all those reasons I have outlined, that regional voices are part of the new ministerial advisory board of Jobs and Skills Australia. There are great ideas out there in the regions about how to solve regional issues. If we ensure that those regional voices are at the table, we will have a much better chance of getting the outcome that we all want, which is a thriving and profitable regional sector.

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