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

I thank the member for Boothby for her question and her very strong support for the VET sector. It was only a while ago that the member and I joined the Treasurer and other ministerial colleagues to launch the employment white paper, talking about the correlation between the investment in skills and ensuring we've got sufficient skills for our labour market and our economy. Of course, that was the reason the Prime Minister convened the Jobs and Skills Summit.

We just heard the Minister for Health and Aged Care talk about how critical it is to have collaboration amongst governments to deliver health reform and health investments. So, too, with education and training, we need the collaboration of all governments, and that Jobs and Skills Summit set the tone for the collaboration which culminated in the announcement of 180,000 fee-free TAFE and VET places. This year, as of 30 September—because the data does come in across all the VET providers—we have now reached 296,107 Australians enrolled in TAFE and VET courses in areas of demand. This is a great example of the efforts that can be realised in terms of real outcomes, if you work closely with state and territory governments and if you work with industry.

Now, looking at what we have done this year, we've put together Jobs and Skills Australia, a body that represents industry, universities and the VET sector, bringing together all of those constituent parts to provide better advice to government. We now have 10 jobs and skills councils. They are critical because they represent different sectors of our economy, so we understand more fully what we need to supply the skills to each and every part of our economy.

Of course, when it comes to delivering the skills, we inherited the deepest and broadest skills shortage in this country for five decades—for 50 years it hadn't been so bad. I have to say, we have done very well to date, but we have got a lot more to do.

That's why the Prime Minister and I, with the ACT Chief Minister, recently announced that we would be increasing an additional 300,000 fee-free TAFE and VET places, starting next year, because we need to supply the skills to our economy; we need to make sure working people have skills, so they can get meaningful work. We need to ensure that businesses can have the skilled workforce they're crying out for, and our economy has sufficient skills so our economy grows and so we can produce the goods and services that Australians deserve. We will continue to work with state and territory governments and continue to work with industry to ensure that we supply the skills that are very much needed.

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