Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Given my short run last night before the adjournment, I am pleased to resume my contribution on the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill 2006. Before we adjourned last night I was acknowledging the fact that the government had introduced the original 2005 bill in order to ensure the achievement of a commitment made during the 2004 election campaign and that the current bill before us seeks to amend that bill to bring forward the funding allocation. I was making the point that the response during the election period was clearly to the fact that there was an important debate going on in the community about the ongoing problem with the skills shortages in various industries and in particular in the traditional trades. Indeed, if we look to the most recent Department of Employment and Workplace Relations report on vacancies, we can see that that skilled vacancies problem has continued. The skilled vacancies index rose by 1.8 per cent in May 2006. All three of the occupational groups experienced an increase in the number of vacancies: professionals, by 0.1 per cent; associate professionals, 3.5 per cent; and the trades, 2.9 per cent.

If in considering the problem of skills vacancies that has existed since 1994 we look at the graph provided by the department, it is quite clear that there has been a long-term, ongoing problem with providing the skilled workers that many of the industries that drive our economy require. Indeed, it is an issue that is consistently debated in the community. Like many members, I am sure, when I talk to local business and industry in my area I consistently hear that they have difficulties in finding both skilled tradespeople and specific university graduates—in particular, in the engineering field—in my area.

It is important that the government seriously addresses the problems that we face currently and in the future on providing the required skilled workforce. The pity with the Australian technical colleges legislation originally was that it is a fairly long-term and problematic approach, although I do support the idea of the technical colleges generally. My understanding is that the act itself proposed establishing 25 technical colleges that would cater for up to 7,500 years 11 and 12 students and that the government had nominated 24 regions across Australia in which these colleges were to be placed. In my own state of New South Wales, colleges were to be placed in Gosford, Dubbo, the Hunter, my own area of the Illawarra, Lismore, Ballina, Port Macquarie, Queanbeyan and Western Sydney.

I took the opportunity in a previous debate in this House, not actually on the bill, to make the point that I felt this program is probably the most incompetently administered above and beyond all I have observed the government implement since the 2004 election and taking up my seat in this place. This program has been pretty much a dog’s breakfast from go to whoa. I think the minister made the policy on the run. I thought it was fairly ill conceived at the time but was willing to give the benefit of the doubt that, with some serious effort, it may get off the ground and provide at least a partial answer to some of the challenges facing businesses. I have been sadly disappointed in that. If we look at progress to date, 21 ATC proposals have been announced but only four have commenced operation this year. I understand the one in Northern Tasmania is scheduled to open in August, but most of them are scheduled for 2007. Of those, however, only six funding agreements have actually been signed with ATCs: in North Queensland, north Brisbane, Adelaide south, Bendigo, Bairnsdale-Sale and Perth south. Seven of the 21 are clearly experiencing difficulties getting their funding proposals signed off and agreed to by the department and the minister. Indeed, my understanding is that, for the one proposed for my own area of the Illawarra, there have been several funding proposals put to the department for approval and each one has been knocked back.

It is very difficult for many of us who represent areas where these technical colleges are proposed—and this is why I am a bit bemused by the government’s requirement for this amendment to bring the money forward—to find out where exactly each of the proposals are up to. There is very little transparency in this program, and that is why I have some reservations about the amendment that gives the discretion for that movement of funding to the minister. As the local member, I have put some questions in writing to the minister. It is difficult to get the detail of why the ATC in my area is experiencing difficulties. I certainly have information on a confidential basis from some members involved in the proposal that, each time they put a proposal up, it was knocked back for a variety of reasons—in particular, problems with the capital involved in the proposal. An amended proposal was put up where the organisation itself would carry most of the capital costs and do a leasing arrangement. That was again knocked on the head, and some degree of concern was expressed about the links with the local TAFE that are part of that proposal.

The difficulty is that the government went out and the minister appeared in these local regions and had information sessions for consortia that might be interested in the proposal of carrying forward the ATC. The message we were very strongly given at those was that they were very much to be locally driven and very much to be responsive to locally appropriate models. In good faith, on that basis many of the local proponents went forward with their proposals, believing that they could put together, under a fairly flexible model, a proposal that was appropriate to the resources and the needs of their region. It is difficult for me to give any sort of honest analysis of whether the government’s knockback of these proposals by our ATC proponents have been legitimate or not, simply because it is impossible to get the detail on what has been going on. It is not good public policy practice to have this sort of program rolling out in which people see proponents in another area announced as having received funding—$20 million, $9.5 million, whatever it may be for their currently approved proposals—that looks pretty much like what they proposed. They are saying to local members such as me, ‘How is what we are proposing any different? Why are we getting knocked back?’ It is important for good faith in these sorts of initiatives that are very different, very new and with very little precedent to be maintained in the face of what can seem to be fairly inconsistent judgments on the various proposals.

I continue in my local area to be optimistic, to give the government the benefit of the doubt and to hope that the commitment to get this up and running is genuine. The proposal seems good. Certainly in my area the proponents have gone to a great deal of trouble to locate the ATC close to the train station and public transport. That is important, given that you are going to be drawing students from a very broad geographic region. To make the system viable, you need to be able to access good, reliable public transport.

It seems that there is a sincere effort to work cooperatively with other providers and businesses in the area, so I am at quite a loss to understand what the problem has been with their proposal and, sadly, unable to fulfil what I think should be part of my function as the federal representative to give them advice and guidance on how they might improve and better progress that proposal when I cannot find out exactly what the criteria are on which these decisions are being made. One would presume from this amendment bill bringing significant amounts of the funding forward from 2008-09 that, indeed, the government does anticipate rapid progress on these ATCs. I certainly hope that that is an optimistic portent for the one in my region and for those other seven that are currently waiting to have their proposals progressed, but I am not particularly convinced that my optimism is well founded in this case.

I think the important thing to acknowledge is that the government has introduced a new system—a federally funded and significantly privatised form of technical and further education for year 11 and year 12 students—that is unprecedented and I would suggest to the minister that it would reflect a much more genuine commitment to progressing that agenda to be more flexible and more open in the decision-making processes. Whilst I am happy to support the amendment bill going through, I would certainly reflect back to the minister and the government the wish that, if anything, our cynicism and concern about the genuine nature of these proposals be laid to rest by a more transparent process so that we can give good advice and publicly feel confident in supporting the local proposals in our areas.

Of course, this bill was considered by the Senate Employment, Workplace Relations and Education Legislation Committee and these same concerns were reflected in the report of the opposition senators. In particular, the report of the opposition senators indicated a concern about the slow progress in implementing this program. I think that partly reflects the fact that it was not a well-considered, well-developed proposal that was taken to the election. I have previously described it in this place as a ‘brain snap’ by a minister desperately trying to find something beyond a toolbox that sounded a bit inspiring to the electorate about addressing the skills problem. In the spirit of addressing that problem, I am happy to support it, but I am particularly frustrated—as I imagine many others are—with the slow progress. Indeed, I understand the minister recently has been out there threatening the potential for some colleges to progress because he considers there is a lack of genuine commitment from the local communities. If their experience is anything like my community’s, I would say that it is potentially not a lack of commitment but a great deal of frustration that the flexibility they seemed to be encouraged to have at the original stage when the minister was promoting the expressions of interest has very much disappeared as they try to progress it through the bureaucracy. The report of the opposition senators also recognised the concern about the lack of financial transparency to which I have referred.

This legislation is of particular interest to me in many ways. I am a former TAFE teacher and I coordinated the joint schools TAFE programs and the Australian traineeship program, so I did an awful lot of work when I was at the TAFE with the local schools and, in particular, coordinating with year 11 and year 12 students doing vocational education and training courses through the TAFE system and also with businesses that were employing trainees under the then Australian traineeship scheme. I acknowledge that the TAFE sector has been particularly good at working closely with local businesses. I know the TAFEs in my area—and I am sure members on both sides of this House have had the same experience with their TAFE colleges—have attempted to work very closely with their local industry. They are very aware of the fact that they want to be putting out graduates who have good job opportunities in their local area. In our area there is a great deal of pride amongst the educational institutions about creating job-ready young people who have a capacity to get work. I acknowledge that the University of Wollongong consistently gets national awards under the quality accreditation scheme for universities for having the highest number of graduates who gain employment after graduating from university. The university and TAFE colleges in my area have been working very closely together for a long time and they jointly work closely with local industry with a focus on developing and delivering programs that best suit their needs. Both the local private and public high schools in my area have very much taken on board the opportunity to run vocational education and training courses.

The other reason that this issue is close to my heart is that I have a 22-year-old son and a 17-year-old son, so I am very conscious of the fact that, if we expect kids to stay on at school, offering them those meaningful opportunities to study is important. My younger son undertook a vocational education and training course in the music industry run by a very good private music provider in my area—313. I really believe that that opportunity is important and, if these colleges can provide another level of that sort of opportunity for young people, I think they will provide a really valuable service, which is why I am keen to see them progressed and, as you can no doubt tell from my contribution, why I am rather disappointed that—unfortunately for those who genuinely want them to happen in our areas—they seem to be stalling on a whole lot of levels.

The disappointment more broadly in addressing the skills issue, reflected in the amendment moved by the shadow minister for education, is that the technical colleges in themselves, even combined with initiatives such as the toolbox allowance, are very much bandaid solutions. There has been a view that young people have a bit of snobbery towards the trades. I would argue that, from my own experience, that is not the case. My oldest son when he finished school had four mates who were consistently in my lounge room. Three of those five were very keen to follow their fathers into traditional trades, but the opportunities were not there. Indeed, when I talk to young people very often I find that they do not complete their trade when they get an apprenticeship because of the lack of incentives and the opportunities to earn better money once you have some basic skills.

The proposals that the shadow minister for education has put forward that support and encourage young people not only into trades but into staying and completing apprenticeships are important and deserve commitment from the government. Labor support this amendment and indeed the original bill—which I would have liked to have spoken on, but I was gagged, which has become a bit of a standard practice unfortunately in this place.

I would like to finish on the fact that the young people who take up these courses will be valuable into the long term. Their contribution will be appreciated. But to address the skills shortage, the government need to look far more broadly and to get these sorts of programs moving rather than to run them out at election time and then mismanage, as has been the case with this one, the implementation over potentially three years now. We will have the next election before we see the outcomes. I say to the House that I hope this amendment reflects the fact that they are getting on with the job with this particular program. (Time expired)

Debate interrupted.