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

I thank the member for Lingiari for her question and her strong advocacy for closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in the skills area in her electorate and across this country. When we came to government, we inherited the greatest skills shortage in 50 years. We also found ourselves inheriting a vocational education and training sector that was depleted and directionless, with a complete absence of national leadership. There were no agreements reached on investment or directional reform of the VET sector with any state or territory government—not one. For example, there was little or no attention paid to the transition of the energy sector, imperative to successfully decarbonise the economy and shift to renewables, the cheapest energy source available.

Upon election, we started working to make up lost time. We convened the Jobs and Skills Summit, bringing constituent parts of the economy together. We established Jobs and Skills Australia to provide strategic advice in education and training and providing skills to a fast-changing economy. Last year, 355,000 Australians enrolled in fee-free TAFE in areas of demand, including in the energy sector, with a further 320,000 courses available from this year. We struck a National Skills Agreement with every state and territory, the first of its kind in more than a decade, with $30 billion of certainty of funding over five years to make sure that we supply the skills that are needed. We're providing $10,000 in financial support to clean energy apprentices. Those apprentices, of course, will be getting a tax cut next Monday, as are 13.6 million taxpayers in this country, a result of this government. The Minister for Climate Change and Energy and I announced further investment in the clean energy sector to increase teachers and trainers, to supply the skills that are needed for this sector. Ten days ago, I was in Western Australia and I was announcing a joint centre of excellence between a university, TAFE and industry in the clean energy sector.

This is a plan for clean energy. This is something which the opposition's plan is devoid of. There has been no reference to a nuclear energy industry workforce plan in anything that has been uttered by the Leader of the Opposition. The reality is they do not have any details. They do not have any plans to supply the skills in this area. The main reason they don't have any plans is because in their heart of hearts they know that their so-called plan doesn't have any chance of happening.

See this speech in context