James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will take this opportunity to talk about our training needs in the vocational education category. I'll start by commending some of the great registered training organisations that we have in this country. I certainly reflect on those that currently exist, and have existed in the past, in my home state of South Australia. They tend to be established by some of the industry bodies. The Motor Trade Association is a good example, as are the Civil Contractors Federation and the Australian Hotels Association. These are good examples of industry groups that have taken the initiative to form registered training organisations because they know the workforce needs for their industry sector.

It was really disappointing eight years ago when the then Labor government in South Australia ripped funding away from those registered training organisations. That government effectively had a policy that said: 'TAFE can't compete with registered training organisations in South Australia. The RTOs are too efficient. They're too responsive to industry needs and employment needs, so we're going to shut them down. We're not going to fund them anymore, and we're going to funnel all of the funding to only one organisation.' That was a great tragedy for those great registered training organisations run by people like the AHA, the MTA and civil contractors. That was a Labor government saying, 'We don't want business and industry involved in identifying training needs in their sector and providing that training, which is obviously in their best interest to do because they're the ones with the most to gain from making sure they have an efficient supply of a trained workforce.'

Regrettably, ever since then in South Australia—I think this is probably a problem nationwide, but it's been acute in South Australia—we've lost that connection, where industry is in true partnership with government to ensure that the training needs for their workforce are provided. When it comes to TAFE, VET or even other forms of higher education, like tertiary education, we need to make sure that we're training people for jobs that actually exist, that we don't have major labour shortages and that young people are trained for genuine opportunities that lie ahead for them.

Now we have some very significant labour workforce challenges in a variety of sectors, like the agriculture sector. In the care sector it is dramatic, particularly with the dramatic challenges happening into the future. It's really regrettable that we don't have a deeper sense of partnership between government and industry groups to provide that training, provide that trained workforce and ensure that the current and—even more importantly—future workforce shortages never eventuate. It shouldn't be that difficult for government and industry to work together and say: 'These are the forward projections of what we think we'll need in a sector, and this is the sort of training that's required. Let's work together to provide it. We in industry in particular can make sure not only that we're advising government on what the genuine opportunities in workforce are but that we're also providing pathways and connections between that training and actual jobs out there in the business communities that make up those industry sectors.'

I'm a great supporter of RTOs, and particularly industry led RTOs that are, of course, providing training for workforces that they actually know exist—they are the industry. And so, when the AHA form an RTO because they want to make sure they're training people in cooking and chef related skills, it's because they absolutely need that workforce trained for the future growth of their sector. While previous Labor governments have not been interested in working with these industry groups, and in fact have actively frustrated those efforts, which disgraceful and appalling, the reverse dividend of that is being felt in a lot of workforce shortages in my home state of South Australia right now.

I hope that governments, particularly Labor governments, change their attitude about that and recognise the value of working with industry groups to identify the training that is needed for future workforce requirements, provide it together and see that outcome that's in the interests of everyone, particularly those young people who will be given a strong future workforce pathway with those partnerships.

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