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

I rise to make some comments in relation to the decision by the government to continue to invest in skills and training and invest in our future. The budget handed down three weeks ago by the Treasurer is one for every Australian. We're delivering a tax cut to every taxpayer and a $300 energy rebate to every household. Helping Australians with the cost of living is our government's No. 1 priority, so we're making medicines cheaper, increasing Commonwealth rental assistance and waiving $3 billion of student debt. At the same time, the budget will ensure that we continue to strengthen the VET sector, close national skills gaps and train the skilled workforce we need right across the economy, including to achieve our ambitious goals of building 1.2 million more homes, net zero and a Future Made in Australia. While the opposition budget reply did not contain a single skills policy, our budget included measures to bolster skills growth and development in the clean energy sector, the construction and housing sector, and the manufacturing sector, as well as to support apprentices and break down barriers for women in male-dominated industries.

These investments continue our work to remove cost barriers to education and training and incentivise people to train in areas where our economy needs them most. That's why we've made announcements to continue investing in fee-free TAFE, with 20,000 additional places to teach skills in the housing and construction workforce. By removing financial barriers to study, fee-free TAFE is giving Australians a great opportunity to get secure and stable employment. Our commitment to deliver 20,000 additional fee-free places in construction and housing comes on the back of 355,000 Australians having already enrolled in fee-free TAFE last year, and we are delivering a further 300,000 fee-free TAFE places from this year.

I visited many TAFEs in Sydney and Melbourne recently with federal colleagues, including Randwick TAFE, Ultimo TAFE, Chisolm and Dandenong TAFEs, and Swinburne. During these visits we spoke with students who right now are training in areas of high skill needs, thanks to fee-free TAFE—students like Chelsea, from Victoria, who is completing her pre-apprenticeship in plumbing. Chelsea chose the course because she likes the hands-on work and likes that it gets the mind thinking as well. She said a fee-free TAFE course makes it easier for her. Students like Chelsea are on track to get secure and well-paid jobs and help build more homes for Australians. As we help train the future workforce we're investing $265 million to provide additional targeted support to priority apprentices.

Importantly, we're reversing some of the baked-in cuts left by the previous coalition government. Apprentices who are training in priority areas will receive an additional $2,000 while their employers will receive an additional $1,000 in the first year to subsidise costs—$5,000 each in total, which is an improvement upon the previous government's last budget, where we saw the cutting of support for both employers and apprentices. When we came to government we were left without a national skills agreement. In fact, for the entire time of the previous government, almost a decade, they did not strike a national skills agreement.

The skills shortage and tight labour market has indeed compelled industry to challenge the outdated notion that only half the population is suitable for jobs. I speak of those occupations that have been, in this case, predominantly male and have really locked out opportunities for women in very high-paid skilled work. For that reason, we want to do more. The budget provides $55 million to increase the proportion of women in male dominated trades. It's not only socially good; it's an economic imperative that we provide the supply of needed skills to the construction sector. This is another way that we can provide opportunities for women while also supplying skills to this important sector.

There are also great opportunities in our rapidly evolving renewables sector. A study by Jobs and Skills Australia shows that the sector will need an additional 240,000 workers. We're investing over $90 million to help skill the clean energy workforce, including $50 million for training facility upgrades and $30 million to accelerate the clean energy teacher and trainer workforce. We've also expanded the New Energy Apprenticeships Program so more apprentices can benefit from the $10,000 cost-of-living cash boost to complete their training in a clean energy related occupation.

These are investments that will help workers who need skills and help businesses that are crying out for skills that they have up to this point not been able to find and that our economy needs to ensure that we have a future made in Australia.

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