Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia is facing a critical skills shortage. I note, however, that in the budget brought down on 9 May there was nothing remotely addressing the skills needs facing Australia. There was no new money for TAFE; an overall reduction in the percentage of the budget spent on vocational education and training; a $13.7 million cut from a program to encourage apprenticeships in rural and regional areas; the abolition of a $38.5 million program aimed at getting more women in non-traditional apprenticeships like construction, automotive, engineering and mining trades; the abolition of a $23.2 million program to give IT skills to low-income older workers; and no extra money in the next four years for the National Skills Shortages Strategy. In fact, as a percentage of the federal budget, that figure will fall over the next four years from 0.75 per cent in 2005-06 to 0.67 per cent in 2009-10.

The Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill 2006 seeks to bring forward the funding for the proposed Australian technical colleges from 2008-09 to 2006-07. Labor will not oppose this bill, as we will support any move by this government to improve the skills base of our nation. Nonetheless, I would be remiss if I did not raise the matter of the potential waste of money that this bill proposes. This is particularly pertinent against the background of the recent budget. When the original bill was debated in June 2005 my colleagues raised concerns about the nature of the technical colleges the government intended to introduce. One of the chief concerns was the ludicrous duplication of resources the bill proposed. I find it hard to believe that this was the solution the government came up with to solve Australia’s skills shortage.

Of course, the concept of Australian technical colleges crystallises the government’s agenda on two fronts: industrial relations and education. ATCs further privatise our education system and have the potential to damage enrolments and course offerings at nearby high schools. Individual contracts and performance pay appear to be the hallmarks of the colleges. I will refer to this again shortly. The government talks about the fact that local industry and communities will have a leadership role in the governance of the colleges. The colleges will teach the skills required by local business. There is a real danger that the courses will become enterprise based rather than industry focused, resulting in young people gaining qualifications that cannot be transported across the industry. The real ideological attack is on public education and the government’s underhanded attempt to deregulate the national training system. In abolishing the Australian National Training Authority, the government is increasing the already heavy influence of peak industry bodies such as the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Business Council of Australia.

The biggest influence on schools and colleges is coming from industry to the extent that their perceived needs overwhelm any other purposes of schooling. Every state and territory has a viable technical skills training structure. These colleges have been severely constrained since 1996 by the massive cuts in Commonwealth funding. Investment in our universities and TAFEs has fallen eight per cent since 1995, which is a poor testimony to this government’s commitment to vocational education. Australia is now only one of three countries in the OECD where public expenditure accounts for less than half the spending on universities and TAFEs. We are in the company of the Czech Republic, Poland, the Slovak Republic and Sweden. We are below the average among developed countries for public expenditure on education per student. In March 2006 the OECD issued its Factbook for 2006. Figures show that spending for each Australian tertiary student fell seven per cent since 1995, compared to an average 12 per cent increase between 1995 and 2002 for those other OECD countries for which data was available.

The government is seeking to replicate its assault on universities with this attack on technical colleges. The public sector is hollowed out by the creation of selective, better funded alternatives which leave the public system behind. This is what the Australian Education Union had to say in 2005 in a briefing paper entitled ‘Australian Technical Colleges: not the solution to the skills shortage’:

They are designed as elitist institutes—selective VET schools. They will have selective entry and preferential funding. They are intended to head hunt the best VET teachers from existing schools and TAFE through higher pay.

Demand for labour is peaking now. The community is experiencing skills shortages now. These shortages are holding Australia back from potential investment, undermining job creation, reducing exports and reducing the size of the economic pie to be shared by all Australians. The shortage of skilled tradespeople is becoming a real barrier to Australia’s economic prosperity.

None of this is new. It comes as no surprise that the country is short of tradespeople. The labour movement has been saying this for years. Yet the government’s approach is to fiddle at the margins, not to confront the real obstacles to apprenticeship training in Australia. This government seeks to impose new technical colleges across the country yet continues to underfund those that do exist. These colleges will not produce a single tradesperson until 2010. At the current rate of enrolment, they will not produce too many even then. There are only four colleges operating in 2006, and these enrolled fewer than 300 students. Many regions are still without a preferred tenderer and the Minister for Vocational and Technical Education has threatened to scrap several of the planned colleges.

I fail to see the logic of providing funding for new college infrastructure. On top of that, what about staff? TAFEs are currently finding it difficult to ensure appropriate levels of staffing, and this proposal simply spreads the available qualified teachers even more thinly. Commonsense alone says this is wrong. Of course, let us not forget the other side of the agenda in establishing these colleges. This is to establish the thin edge of the wedge in industrial relations. Funding for the colleges is conditional on specific industrial arrangements, including the provision of AWAs, individual contracts of employment and performance pay. In its submission to the Senate Employment, Workplace Relations and Education Legislation Committee inquiry into the original bill, the Independent Education Union stated:

The governance arrangements of ATCs are not totally clear, yet the ideological motives are transparent. Where the government can do so it will tie funding to ensuring that employees are offered Australian Workplace Agreements. Employees who staff these colleges will come from both the government and non-government sectors.

The IEU expressed its philosophical position on the ideological motives of the legislation and continued:

It is a false assumption that AWAs will somehow achieve higher rates of pay for teachers employed in ATCs.

If the government is truly focused on solutions to address the national skills shortage, why is there the need to tie in employment conditions? It is no doubt to continue its foul industrial relations agenda from another angle.

The government also fiddled at the edges of this crisis by importing apprenticeships through the introduction of the trade skills training visa, subclass 471. This gives apprenticeships to unskilled migrants rather than to young Australians. These visas are in a range of Australian regional areas where young Australians face chronic unemployment—up to one in three are unemployed. Do not get me wrong: I support immigration, but in this scheme employers are not even required to advertise apprenticeships locally. We must fund those people in Australia wishing to undertake apprenticeships, not turn them away from TAFE and not create new colleges when those that exist are inadequately funded.

There are many ways that this ideological decision will affect the public vocational sector. I summarise a community leaflet produced by the New South Wales Teachers Federation in August 2005. There will be fewer publicly funded places and fewer courses as TAFE is forced to increase its commercial activities. On entrepreneurialism, there will be a less capable workforce as quality in TAFE qualifications is reduced by an increase in student-teacher ratios, significantly less course duration, reduced student access to teachers and reduced access to preferred courses, especially in rural areas. There will be questionable qualifications as each year more vocational education is privatised and given to profit-making trainers. Apprenticeships will be cut short by tampering with the state apprenticeship system. There will be fewer expert teachers, as industrial rights disappear and teaching loses its attraction. There will be a higher cost of tradespeople, other skilled workers and services due to worsening skills shortages.

I support the second reading amendment proposed by the member for Jagajaga which highlights the incompetent handling of this matter. Labor will support this bill despite its blatant disregard for the needs of young Australians. The government have been in office now for over 10 years and sooner or later they are going to be held to account. This is not the only area where they are bringing up some half-baked schemes and creating a smoke and mirrors situation to overcome their incompetence and ineptitude and to fool the public into believing that something is going to be done to fix the problem. Sooner or later it is going to catch up to them. They are going to be held to account on their rhetoric, and that is why I think that in this area they have done the wrong thing. I think there is an ideological mindset against TAFEs, the states and the state system. We should have picked up the existing infrastructure, worked with the states and used existing TAFEs to boost apprenticeships and skills instead of these colleges. Time will tell. We will see what is produced by this government, but I predict that not much will come of this venture. A lot of money will be poured in but there will not be a lot of results.

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to invite the member for Banks to come to Townsville for the opening of the Australian technical college North Queensland in early 2007 and then he might understand just how good ATCs are going to be for this country. I would also remind the member for Banks that the good people of the technical college North Queensland sought to work with the Queensland government and the TAFE in Townsville and they were basically turned away. The ATC North Queensland would have used some spare premises at the TAFE college in Townsville but the TAFE said, ‘No, we would prefer to see them remain unused than have you there.’

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Empty?

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Absolutely empty. Those facilities are at the old Townsville High School site in the city, which is currently occupied by TAFE and is surplus to requirements. That is the ideological driver that has been going on with the Labor Party and that is really unfortunate.

The Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia's Skills Needs) Amendment Bill 2006 is about flexibility. It is about allowing the government to bring forward the opening of new technical colleges as soon as possible. It is about being able to properly fund the new technical colleges—because they are all different. This is a fantastic model because it allows regions to decide for themselves what is best for their region. It allows regions to decide which skill sets should be covered in the ATCs. It allows regions to decide where colleges might be located and what facilities might be provided. That is what then results in every college being different from every other college. Surely that is a good thing. It is in line with the government’s thinking on industrial relations where we do not believe that somebody sitting in a centralised place in Melbourne can decide how an employee is going to work in North Queensland, because working conditions can be quite different in different regions of Australia and to have employees subject to the same conditions right across the country is clearly a nonsense. That is how we feel about the Australian technical colleges—that in fact regions should be able to have the flexibility to design a college and the courses necessary to suit that exact region.

But it has gone on from there. In Townsville, industry has positively embraced 110 per cent the concept of an Australian technical college in North Queensland. They have given hundreds of hours of their time to work with the board to make sure that we get the best result. Do you know what the result is? The college was going to open with 100 places. Those places are already fully filled. The college is not yet built and they are already filled. Industry has said, ‘We will have 100 places in that college.’ I note that the Minister for Vocational and Technical Education is at the table. I am not certain whether we have advised the minister formally yet—

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can’t wait.

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

but we intend to do even better. Although the minister might think we are going to have 100 places—

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But wait, there’s more!

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But wait, there’s more—we reckon we can get 130 places starting early next year. What a great deal that is for North Queensland. I am sure the minister and the government will not object to the fact that industry is so supportive of this particular technical college that we will be able to fill 130 places.

I congratulate the board members of the ATCNQ: the chair of the board, John Bearne, who has been a true community leader in this project, Lawrie Martin, the deputy chair, Roslyn Baker, Shayne Blackman, Stephanie Giorcelli, Angela Hill, Bruce Lean, Barry May, Alan Morris and Lyn Russell. I thank the Townsville City Council for their help in securing and agreeing to the land arrangements for where the college is being built. I thank the Thuringowa City Council for their leadership in the early days when they recognised how important this would be. I thank you, Minister Hardgrave, for the work you have done on the technical colleges. The Thuringowa City Council were certainly leaders. They saw the vision and it has happened. I really appreciate the support of Les Tyrell and his councillors.

The North Queensland region is eagerly waiting the opening of the student applications for enrolment. Those applications will be opened on 17 July 2006 and my message to the mums and dads out there who would like to see their youngsters, both male and female, involved in technical training is that they should get in there and get involved in the inaugural intake. Positive word of mouth is going around our region and community support and involvement has exceeded expectations very significantly. Applications for places will close on 30 September 2006 and the opening of the college will be made possible by the passage of this bill through the parliament.

I am really sorry to see one of the points in the amendment that the Labor Party has moved. It is point (4) covering what the Labor Party alleges:

(4)

its incompetent handling of the Australian Technical Colleges initiative as evidenced by only four out of twenty five colleges being open for business ...

Mr Deputy Speaker, I can tell you we have had no more hardworking minister than Gary Hardgrave in pushing these 25 proposed colleges through to opening their doors. You cannot just start with a greenfield site and open immediately. It takes time. In the case of Townsville, we turned the first sod on 2 June—the minister was present as I was; there was very strong representation from the community—but we now have to spend of the order of $2 million a month to make sure that the college is open early next year and that is a significant ask. We are going to do it, it will happen, the college will open; but you cannot open colleges without a lot of hard work going on and a lot of effort through the community. I am disappointed to see that paragraph of the amendment that the ALP have moved and I reject it out of hand.

Another major factor in the widespread support in North Queensland is the direct and regular engagement by the ATCNQ of industry highlighted by the formation of four expert industry reference groups in the target trade areas of the construction, automotive, engineering and electrotechnology industries. There are representatives from each of those segments on the board and they work very hard. Approximately 40 regional industry leaders have volunteered their time, knowledge and resources to ensure the young persons that graduate through the ATCNQ program possess the necessary skills to immediately contribute to the workplace and the regional economy. The ERG model is a best practice example of industry and educators working in harmony to achieve a collective beneficial outcome. The role of the ATCNQ, in working with the broader community in projects that benefit the region, should not be underestimated in the generation of regional goodwill. The ATCNQ is providing its own expertise and resources to community based programs, such as the North Queensland Job Shop, the NQ Smart Trades Expo and a number of other community groups that work tirelessly for the benefit of young people.

This has been a terrific model. It is already a terrific success. When the college in North Queensland opens, it will be a double success. It will be a credit to the Minister for Vocational and Technical Education for his achievements in this particular area. I will close now with a good all-round set of congratulations to all of those involved in the Australian Technical College North Queensland and I would like to particularly thank Stach. Rudi Stachow has been extraordinarily good in clearing all the difficulties that arise in greenfield sites and I think that we are going to have to make sure that, when the college opens, he is there to help cut the ribbon.

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill 2006. I rise to express my concerns for the Australians who need to develop skills with which they can earn a decent living and pay for the sorts of things most of us here take for granted—that is, a home that we can own, a family and the prospect of saving for the future and inevitably retirement without being crushed by debt, which is becoming a greater burden each year. We saw recently interest rates get higher, together with household debt, and petrol prices will climb even higher in the very near future. Young Australians need opportunities to engage in the workforce. They need to find their niche and, through the development of their skills and experience, establish a career that is going to ensure for them a decent day’s pay for a decent day’s work.

I also rise to express my concern for people’s ability to do business in a skilled labour deprived environment. Shortages of skilled labour will only lead to frustrated growth and inflated costs—not a situation that is likely to reap rewards for Australia and most of its people. I spend a lot of time listening to the views of my electorate, as most members do in this place. I listen to all the views that I can hear. I listen to people that I meet in the street, I listen to radio et cetera. On talkback radio recently, in particular, the Leon Byner program on 5AA, I heard Leon talk—and I must thank him for raising a very good point—about a former South Australian Premier, and a Liberal Premier at that, Thomas Playford, who earned the respect of all South Australians regardless of their political persuasion. Leon Byner spoke on the 5AA program of Tom Playford’s belief—it is a very important belief—that, if you have a skilled workforce, the investment and the jobs will follow; without a skilled workforce, you are praying for rain.

Like many regional areas in Australia, Adelaide has experienced a drain on our youth in the past—a drain that has thankfully been reversed thanks to the Rann Labor government in South Australia. In years gone by many young people have been lured interstate to further their education and training and, ultimately, careers and family lives. The state Labor government has managed to turn this around. What South Australia has needed to retain its young people is opportunity—opportunity to develop skills, to secure gainful employment, to save for a home and a family and to continue to develop skills that will keep a person in good stead within the workforce. Any community will want to retain its own young people—the people who have family in the area, a connection with the community, a history of shared experiences, a stake in its future and a commitment to that area. Surely, there are no better people in whom to invest education and the development of skills and career than our very own young people, who are most likely to stay within a region and continue to contribute long into the future.

The government’s New Apprenticeships scheme has been in operation for some time now. The government counts it as one of its great successes. But many would argue that it has failed young Australians and failed our workforce requirements. The National Centre for Vocational Education Research report Australian qualifications framework lower-level qualifications: Pathways to where for young people? shows that only 33 per cent of people enrolled in a certificate I qualification and 43 per cent of people enrolled in a certificate II qualification complete their courses. Of the few who do complete, over a third of participants said they saw no real job related benefits in the training they received. This government pays out over $76 million to employers as incentives to take on certificate II trainees, including $18 million for retail courses and $6 million for hospitality. Research shows young people in these courses have been used as cheap labour and have not been given the skills they need for future full-time employment. It may well be that the government has identified a stale smell coming from the New Apprenticeships scheme, as it is reportedly going to spend $24 million to give it a facelift—renaming it Australian Apprenticeships, according to yesterday’s Advertiser.

The government’s claim that it is tremendous at managing the nation is at odds with its history and its apparent addiction to coming up with means by which greater numbers of people can come in from overseas to take paid employment. Year after year, more and more people are coming in through skilled labour, unskilled labour and regional programs. This government has managed the situation such that it confesses to require a flood of imported labour just to keep the economy ticking over and for the skills shortfalls to not cause it acute political damage. This government’s management philosophy is identified in Australia’s being the only developed country that is reducing public investment in institutions such as our TAFEs and universities. That investment has been reduced by eight per cent since 1995. The OECD average is a 38 per cent increase. This management philosophy is also evident in its hypothesis that, if you decrease people’s packages of pay and conditions, they are likely to work harder and smarter.

The government has not only allowed the overall percentage of the federal budget spent on vocational education and training to fall but reinforced this decline by allowing the percentage to continue to fall over the period of the forward estimates. The government’s latest solution was thrown at the Australian public in a $6 billion, $100 million per minute grab bag of policies that came streaming out in the Liberal and National parties joint 2004 campaign launch—such is the attention this problem received. It is a political problem to which the government has attempted only a political fix, with no substance and no expectation of delivering what the country needs—just like the New Apprenticeships scheme’s expected make-up job.

The government’s policy of brand new technical colleges springing up around the country is not delivering what young people, industry and the nation require. Of the 25 Australian technical colleges that have been promised, only four are open for business, enrolling fewer than 300 students. As at 30 May 2006, $185 million had been committed to the Australian technical colleges but only $18 million had been spent. I have to wonder whether the government is going to spend what it has made provision for—$343 million over five years. While the construction of a new institution such as this is interesting to watch, the opportunity costs of slow progress, protracted negotiations and the effects of tying this initiative to its obsession with AWAs are too great for Australia to gamble with. This is not the time for experimentation, for trying to stare down the public. It may, I hope, see them buckle to its insistence on AWAs.

The prospect of AWAs being forcibly inflicted upon public sector agencies, riveted into the agencies’ very existence and forcing themselves upon more Australians, betrays the government’s belief that the creeping advance of AWAs is a higher political priority than training our kids for work and providing the economy with the skilled workforce that it needs. Isn’t this amazing, coming from the self-appointed patriarch of personal choice? The continuing skills problem is evident in the skilled vacancies May 2006 index, which shows vacancies in electrical and electronics trades rose 3.3 per cent, in construction trades 2.1 per cent, in automotive trades 2.9 per cent, for chefs 3.9 per cent and for hairdressing 6.3 per cent. That is in a single month. That is one month’s slide backwards.

Australia needs a more systematic approach to promoting trades and science and technology education than the government’s 25 technical colleges. If this is the best this government can do, Australians will no doubt look to Labor’s plan. Labor will work collaboratively and constructively with the state and territory governments, not start a federal versus state hissing match—as we have seen—to tackle the problem at its base. Labor will provide for sound training opportunities, building on what already exists and what needs to be ratcheted up to increase not only the take-up of such training but successful completion that establishes long-term careers and benefits to industry.

Labor’s skills blueprint, released in September 2005, outlines what I believe Australia needs to build our skills base through the secondary education system. We must offer young people better choices by teaching trades, technology and science in first-class facilities that encourage participation and the desire to engage and learn; establish a trades-in-schools scheme to double the number of school based apprenticeships in areas of skills shortage and provide extra funding per place; establish specialist schools for the senior years in areas such as trades, technology and science; and establish a trades taster program so that years 9 and 10 students can experience a range of trade options, which could also lead to pre-apprenticeship programs. These are real benefits for young people. Only Labor is focused on increasing the number of young Australians who successfully complete their apprenticeships. The next Labor government will achieve this through the establishment of an $800 per year skills account, which would abolish up-front TAFE fees, and a $2,000 trade completion bonus, under which traditional apprentices would receive a $1,000 payment halfway through their training and a further $1,000 payment at the completion of their apprenticeship. The aim of this scheme is an 80 per cent completion rate.

There is a very clear choice before the electorate. There is a clear point of difference between the Liberal government opposite and the party that is committed to improving young Australians’ access to and long-term success within the workforce. This government has nothing to hang its hat on but the radical increase in skilled migration. It clearly cannot fix the skills shortage and it has largely given up, preferring to pull people from other countries and other training systems. I think we all want to see young Australians take available jobs. I want them to have access to affordable training, to incentives to work hard and complete their training, to employable skills and to a great future serving their own communities and taking pride in both their work and their contribution to their community and to Australia.

Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am certainly very pleased to rise to speak on the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill 2006. This bill signifies the great success that the Australian technical colleges have been in Australia. This bill signifies that success because, at its core, this bill is about changing the funding distribution for Australian technical colleges because the government’s roll-out of ATCs has been more successful than we anticipated. Because there has been more demand for ATCs in the Australian community than was forecast by the Australian government, it has been necessary to alter the distribution of funding to ensure that there is more money up-front for the roll-out of highly successful colleges—like the one in my electorate of Moncrieff, which is solving, in very large part, skills needs in my electorate and in the city of the Gold Coast—and that there is capital available for the establishment of new ATCs.

From the beginning—and I was there when this announcement was made by the Prime Minister—I have been very supportive of the need for a roll-out of ATCs. I am supportive because I have seen the high price that Australia has paid as a consequence of a failing TAFE system under various state Labor governments and of the complete lack of investment in this over a very substantial period of time. That was started and contributed to most significantly by the Australian Labor Party who, despite their rhetoric, have done so very little in any meaningful way to ensure that Australians have the skills sets necessary for the future.

Under a super-strong Australian economy—a ‘miracle economy’, as the Economist magazine labelled it—some stresses have arisen. High demand for jobs, for workers and to ensure that Australians are able to maximise their dollar, in all forms of employment, has meant the creation of many jobs in this country. And the creation of those jobs under the Howard government has seen our unemployment rate fall to record lows. That stands in stark contrast to the situation under the Australian Labor Party, where one million or so Australians were unemployed.

Because of this high jobs growth, we have seen, as I just mentioned, some stresses with respect to labour force shortages. In meeting the stresses that flowed from labour force shortages, this government recognised the problem and acted swiftly to correct it. Australian technical colleges are part of how we are ensuring that future generations of Australians have access to a trade, to a vocation, to an apprenticeship, to ensure that they will be able to not only meet the skills required by employers in the future but also have a meaningful career that they can apply themselves to, take forward and take great pride in.

I went to a number of meetings several years ago on the Gold Coast, when various consortia were sitting down and talking about putting in expressions of interest in tendering for the Australian technical college that had been allocated to the Gold Coast. I took great delight in hearing some of the fantastic plans that the various consortia had for meeting the need for the skills sets required in our local community.

My approach, from the outset several years ago, was to provide advice and direction where I could as to what it was that I thought this policy that the Australian government had announced was directed towards. I did so with the full intention of being 100 per cent behind the successful tenderer for an Australian technical college. I was delighted when the member for Moreton, the Minister for Vocational and Technical Education, who is in the chamber this evening, telephoned me and advised that TAIT, The Australian Institute of Training, was the head of the successful consortium that had sought and been delivered the opportunity to roll out an Australian technical college on the Gold Coast.

It was a collaborative exercise, incorporating, as one of the key members of the consortium, AB Paterson College. The principal there, Dawn Lang, whom I know very well and who I know is passionate about training young Australians and ensuring they have opportunities, worked together with other members to ensure that their bid was successful. Their bid was successful because it directly addressed the policy focus that the minister had from the outset: to ensure that the ATC that was established was supported by local industry; incorporated local industry into developing curricula, so that students were learning skills sets that were required by employers; and encouraged young Gold Coasters to sign up to gain trade skills that would ensure they had a career they could be proud of into the future.

I had the pleasure, together with the member for Fadden, David Jull, of attending the official opening of the Australian technical college in Nerang, on the Gold Coast. It sits between the Moncrieff and Fadden electorates, and has been going from strength to strength. I have spoken to many parents whose children have gone through the ATC on the Gold Coast and have heard first-hand anecdotes from them about how their children are faring in undertaking the ATC courses. I have spoken to employers involved with the ATC on the Gold Coast and have heard their pride in contributing something back to the development of young, talented Australians who are developing a trade by undertaking their studies at the ATC.

Let us not lose sight of the fact that those students in years 11 and 12 who are enrolled in any Australian technical college—but my interest is of course in the one on the Gold Coast—are earning their senior studies certificate while they are undertaking their school based apprenticeship. So when they leave their ATC training course they are already well and truly on the path to developing a meaningful career in a trade. That is something I believe is worth more than the popular rhetoric that we hear from the Australian Labor Party.

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It’s not very popular.

Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister at the table makes a very good point: it is not very popular. They think it is populist, but it is not. From my perspective, the great irony of what we have heard from the Australian Labor Party is the criticism that there are not enough ATCs being rolled out across the country. But the reality is that the bill is before the House tonight because there is so much demand in the community for these ATCs. This is what the Labor Party fails to understand. We would not be having this debate if it were not for the fact that ATCs are so popular and are being demanded by communities all across Australia. Part of the reason there is such strong demand for these colleges is that the Australian Labor Party has dropped the ball in every state and territory in this country. Part of the reason young Australians are choosing to go down this path is that they can look ahead a couple of years and see a TAFE system that absolutely does not meet their needs or the needs of current employers in the kinds of skills training it provides.

That is the reality of this debate. That is the reason the Howard government and the minister at the table tonight moved forward with this policy. It is policy that has been welcomed with open arms by various businesses and employers throughout Australia. As someone who talks with local employers in my local community I hear first-hand from them about the meaningful contribution that the ATC on the Gold Coast is making to their future labour force requirements.

With respect to the ATC Gold Coast, there are a number of areas in which the Gold Coast labour force is in short supply. Construction is one and hospitality is another, particularly the restaurant and catering requirements in hospitality, and the boat-manufacturing industry is a third. In these three areas the ATC on the Gold Coast is making sure that the kids who go through are developing skill sets that will directly mean that they can step into an apprenticeship, be it in a restaurant perhaps as an apprentice chef, be it as an apprentice carpenter at a boat-building facility or be it as a carpenter on a construction site. In each of these areas, the Australian Technical College Gold Coast is making a direct contribution to the employability of young Australians so that they can go into these areas of labour force demand. In my city of the Gold Coast this means there is a direct contribution through the roll-out of these ATCs to the strength of our local economy.

I have to say that it is crucial that this government be concerned not only with young Australians who may choose to undertake tertiary study at a university but also with young Australians who want to undertake vocational education. This bill, together with the original bill, directly addresses that demand. It stands in contrast to the Australian Labor Party, for whom this debate really is secondary. We see that question time after question time when the Australian Labor Party comes into this chamber and focuses only on universities. We do not see any real regard paid to the issue of vocational education for young Australians. We do not see any criticism from the Australian Labor Party about the appalling state of many TAFE colleges around Australia. We do not hear any real plan from the Australian Labor Party when it comes to ensuring that young Australians have vocational education pathways. In fact we hear from the Australian Labor Party the deafening sound of silence when it comes to vocational education.

I believe this bill is much more than any kind of populist rhetoric. It is an on-the-ground demonstration of the meaningful delivery of government programs, government infrastructure and government facilities. It is not a top-down approach. This bill is about facilitation. It is not a top-down approach where the Prime Minister or the minister go around and say to the Australian people, ‘This is what you will do and this is how it will happen.’ In stark contrast, this bill and the original piece of legislation are about empowering local communities to incorporate their business community, to incorporate educators and to incorporate various employers so that they can work together, with the assistance of taxpayer funds, to develop an Australian technical college that meets the needs of their local community.

That is exactly what occurred on the Gold Coast with the establishment of the ATC Gold Coast. That is what should be occurring around the country. It is not happening as quickly as we would desire, but that is a consequence of the fact that there has been so much demand for these ATCs, and in particular for the creation of new facilities, that we will see a big take-up of 25 ATCs across the country over the next 12 months.

This program sees the commitment of more than $343 million over five years, fulfilling the election commitment that was made by the Australian government, by the Prime Minister when he launched our campaign in 2004. This is in addition to the general recurrent funding that colleges will also receive from the Commonwealth and state and territories under the usual school funding arrangements. So it is a program that sees the investment of hundreds of millions of dollars into the creation of these very worthwhile and important ATCs across various communities in the country.

I am pleased that this government has not been blinded by industrial relations ideology, like the Australian Labor Party has been, when it comes to the labour force arrangements that are being incorporated into ATCs. The fact is that ATC industrial relations requirements are predicated on one key principle. One key principle lies behind the industrial relations requirements for ATCs: flexibility, something that the Australian Labor Party completely misses. Its notion that in some way we are dogmatic about industrial relations is almost farcical. It is the Australian Labor Party that is doctrinally blind to the fact that when you say, ‘No, we’ll only have enterprise bargaining or collective agreements when it comes to ATCs,’ you are actually trying to stifle flexibility when it comes to the roll-out of these kinds of colleges. It is a great shame that the Australian Labor Party would deny communities flexibility when in fact the whole purpose of this bill and of the legislation that creates these colleges is to empower local communities.

I am very pleased that the Australian Technical College Gold Coast is operating so successfully. I commend the students that have gone through that ATC for having the vision to recognise the great benefit that flows to them through their involvement. I absolutely commend those employers and small businesses on the Gold Coast who have worked hand in hand to make sure that a modern, flexible and focused ATC has been established. This is a key part of ensuring that the labour force requirements of our city will be met in the future. But what I am most proud of is that this legislation demonstrates that the Howard government—the member for Moreton, as the minister, and I, together with my colleagues—listened to the Australian people when they told us that they want the opportunity to ensure that young Australians have a career path in the trades. That is what this bill is about. That is what the Australian technical colleges are about. I commend this bill and the entire principle of ATCs to the House.

Sharon Grierson (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the  Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill 2006 and support the amendment moved by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. But I must also note that the previous speaker, the member for Moncrieff, is obviously wearing his white shoes today. The legislation before us seeks to bring forward funding for the proposed 25 Australian technical colleges from 2008-09 into 2006-07. While the total funding amount from 2006 to 2009 remains the same, some $88 million is being bought forward.

Labor does not oppose the move to bring this funding forward—heaven knows the Australian technical colleges scheme needs it after the way the Howard government has bungled its implementation. What we do oppose is the systematic way in which this government has underinvested in the skills of this nation’s people over the past 10 long years. Even with bringing forward this funding, these Australian technical colleges will not produce their first qualified tradesperson until 2010. That is 3½ years away. That seems a funny way to address what everybody else in the country is calling a massive, immediate, shortage of skilled workers. Indeed, the skills crisis has got so out of control under the Howard government that by 2010, according to the Australian Industry Group, this nation will need an extra 100,000 skilled workers. The Howard government’s Australian technical colleges will have produced just 300 skilled workers by that time. What a pathetic outcome for the $350 million the government is spending on this.

Only four Australian technical colleges are currently operating, despite their being one of the centrepieces of the Howard government’s election campaign back in 2004. Indeed, looking at the locations of the technical colleges does give a clue as to why that might be. Nineteen out of the 25 proposed colleges are located in Liberal or National Party seats, many of which are marginal. Eighteen months after the election, only four of these colleges are up and running. And with recent reports suggesting that four are in danger of being scrapped altogether, it is clear that skilling our workforce is not the high priority that the Howard government pretends that it is. Apparently, it is interested in the skills crisis only around election time when it can pork-barrel with proposals to build these new colleges in its marginal seats.

The government cannot say it has not been warned about the skills crisis. The Reserve Bank of Australia’s latest statement on monetary policy clearly stated that the national skills crisis is holding back our economy. The RBA said:

... that lack of suitable labour was a bigger constraint on—

business—

... activities than more traditional concerns about the adequacy of demand or sales.

Most recently, an international survey found that half of Australian businesses felt constrained by a lack of skilled staff. Comparing us to other nations, it found that only Botswana had a bigger skills crisis. And the government also has its own report into skills shortages and the ageing population, the Workforce Tomorrow report. This report deals with Australia’s ageing population and its projected shortfall of skilled workers. Unfortunately, since its release in November last year, the government has done nothing but use Workforce Tomorrow as a justification for its Work Choices package. That is a shame because the report actually raises serious questions—but the government has got the wrong answer. The response by the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Mr Andrews, to this report, that that is why we need Work Choices, would be laughable if it were not so serious for the workers of this country. How driving down wages and conditions, doing away with penalty rates, removing protection from unfair dismissal and all but abolishing collective bargaining creates a skilled workforce is anyone’s guess. In fact, it defies logic. What it actually creates is a new class of working poor, vulnerable to exploitation and dependent on the goodwill of the boss, not the law of the land, to maintain their dignity as workers.

Unfortunately, the Howard government has no plan for sustaining this prosperity in the future. It has wasted its opportunity to do something in this latest budget. It has wasted the past 18 months when it should have been getting these technical colleges up and running. It has wasted the past 10 years when the looming skills crisis was brewing on its watch. Australia is the only developed country which has actually reduced public investment in TAFEs and universities. Public investment in Australia’s universities and TAFEs has fallen eight per cent since 1995. The OECD average is an embarrassing 38 per cent increase, yet all this government can manage, when it comes to investing in knowledge, is a measly eight per cent decline.

On budget night we saw yet another wasted opportunity, with all serious commentators and economists crying out for the Treasurer, Peter Costello, to use his $17 billion surplus to invest in the skills of our workforce—but the Treasurer did nothing. So the budget was all about the Howard government giving up on increasing productivity by not acting on this skills crisis. It was the Howard government saying that importing 270,000 skilled workers from overseas is an adequate response to that crisis. It was the Howard government saying that technical colleges, with their paltry 300 graduates in 2010, is an adequate response to the skills crisis.

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hardgrave interjecting

Sharon Grierson (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was the Howard government saying that an eight per cent decrease in public investment in universities and TAFEs is an adequate response. And it was the Howard government saying that stripping the rights of workers through its extreme industrial relations regime is an adequate response.

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is not true either.

Sharon Grierson (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, it is not an adequate response.

Kim Wilkie (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The minister will have an opportunity to respond at the end of the debate.

Sharon Grierson (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Howard government would know this if some of them came out into the real world and asked some real people about it. They should perhaps ask the 8,000 people aged between 15 and 24 who are unemployed in my electorate of Newcastle whether they think it is an adequate response. Ask the 300,000 Australians that the Howard government has turned away from university and TAFE whether it is an adequate response.

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That’s not true either.

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Minister.

Sharon Grierson (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ask the 40 per cent of people who do not finish their New Apprenticeships training whether it is an adequate response. That is not true either? No, I think it is true. Ask all those workers around Australia who have been sacked and rehired for lesser pay and conditions whether that is an adequate response. The answer is clearly no, it is not an adequate response; it is an absolutely pathetic response.

A real response would be to take up Labor’s proposals to promote skills training in our schools. Under Labor’s skills blueprint, trades technology and science would be taught in first-class facilities; a trades-in-schools scheme would double the number of school based apprenticeships and provide extra funding per place; specialist schools would be established to teach trades technology and science in senior years; and a trades taster program would allow years 9 and 10 students to experience a range of trade options. We need to give our kids a go at trades in our schools. We need to get to them early and get them involved. Labor’s skills-in-schools plan would get them in. Labor’s plan to overhaul the New Apprenticeships scheme would keep them in.

Under Labor’s apprenticeship plan, a range of incentives would be offered to increase the number of young Australians completing their training. These would include an $800 per year skills account, which would abolish up-front TAFE fees. They would also include a $2,000 trade completion bonus under which apprentices in traditional trades would receive a $1,000 payment halfway through their training and a further $1,000 payment at the completion of their apprenticeship. This scheme aims to lift the Howard government’s woeful 40 per cent apprenticeship completion rate to at least 80 per cent.

Labor is also committed to abolishing the Howard government’s skilled migration visa so that young Australians are given the opportunity to train first. Labor’s plan recognises that young Australians are crying out for opportunities and that Australian businesses are crying out for skilled workers—tradespeople, chefs and child-care workers. This is particularly true in my electorate of Newcastle, where our industries are building a growing reputation for innovation, value adding and excellence. This reputation can only be maintained and enhanced if they have access to a skilled workforce and the means to train young apprentices.

The Howard government’s proposed technical college in my region is expected to enrol year 11 students in October next year. That is three years after it was promised at the 2004 election.

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What rubbish. That is total rubbish!

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

Sharon Grierson (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, we look forward to you altering that.

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister will have an opportunity to respond at the end of the debate. The member for Newcastle has the call and will be heard in silence.

Sharon Grierson (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

These year 11 students will finish their training by around 2010. That is what this government’s commitment to skills and training in our region adds up to. Yes, the Howard government has given up. Fortunately, though, Labor has not given up on training our young people and nor have our local businesses and training organisations. The Hunter Institute of TAFE has a well-deserved reputation for training people in the areas which our local industries need. The institute’s electrical engineering department provides a recognition program for avionics technicians from RAAF Williamtown. This process enables current technicians to upgrade their skills and qualifications to meet current aerospace industry demands and standards. This section also provides advanced training in electronics and communications to RAAF students.

The Hunter Institute engineering faculty is providing training for new apprentices in recognised skills shortage areas that are required for the manufacturing, engineering, mining and defence industries. Last year its apprentice enrolment in trades included 568 in metal fabrication, 432 in fitting and machining, 687 in electrical, 119 in electronic and 120 in detailed drafting. To assist all local industry to meet the need for skilled workers, the Hunter Institute has provided prevocational training. These courses equip young people with technical training and also provide them with vital work placements and assistance with communication skills.

In 2005, a total of 373 positions were offered across relevant trades, funded through a combination of state and federal programs. An additional 225 prevocational places will be made available under the federal government’s New Apprenticeships Access Program funding. These courses are delivered through an innovative partnership between Alliance Training Solutions and the Hunter Institute and provide a five-week accelerated training program in metals or electrical trades. The focus of these programs is placement in real work, and it has resulted in 82 per cent of graduates gaining employment in engineering or related fields. I say to the government: give us more of that and then we might make an impact. The technical colleges certainly will not do that.

An additional 50 prevocational places in metal trades have been offered to long-term unemployed people in partnership with Job Network members, and a further 45 prevocational places in metal trades and electrical trades have been offered through the state government’s TradeStart program. That is a total of 693 young people who are gaining skills that are highly valued in the workforce in preparation for employment—an investment in the skills future of our region.

Some time ago, the Hunter Institute also played a leading role in providing training for workers using composite materials for the minehunter project. At present the institute is providing further composite training for apprentices based at RAAF Williamtown in aerospace companies and tailors training courses for individual firms who are carrying out defence work. With Sensation Yachts and Azzura Yachts opening business in the Port of Newcastle, we know that that training is a real investment in the region’s future that will sustain our prosperity.

Because our TAFE works with local industry in such a strategic way, it is not surprising that demand for enrolments at TAFE increased by about 6.5 per cent this year, following a 30 per cent increase the year before. Construction and engineering were among the areas of highest demand and that is great news. It shows our young people are eager to learn a trade at our excellent local TAFE.

Unfortunately, the Howard government is not so eager to have these kids learn a trade, allocating no new funds to our TAFE or indeed to any TAFE in this country. Instead of putting up some money to meet a clear demand in a well-established institute of TAFE, the government is trying to starve it to death by diverting funds to a private technical college that will only produce graduates by 2010. The minister said that I am wrong; I hope he can prove it. We will track the number of graduates from that college, if it ever gets off the ground.

I would also like to put on the record my admiration for other local organisations involved in skills training. A significant cluster group, HunterNet, was established in 1992 and is an innovative cooperative of small and medium sized Hunter based manufacturing, engineering and consulting companies. It promotes advanced networking to combine skills, resources and industry knowledge to reinforce the Hunter’s reputation as a prime national manufacturing region. HunterNet led the way with group training initiatives based on industry needs. The results of HunterNet Group Training’s work has been outstanding. More than 80 per cent of the apprentices and trainees who go through their system complete their indentures and remain in full-time employment with the host or parent company that they trained with.

Another great example from our region is the Hunter Skills Development Program, initiated by the Australian Industry Group in 2004. The program has been able to boast a number of successful outcomes in its first year, including a 40 per cent increase in manufacturing and engineering trade apprenticeships. It also provided assistance to over 60 industry members with upskilling and training advice for employees. It facilitated the participation by over 200 people from business, schools and training providers in two industry school forums, and established a 10-week marketing campaign on manufacturing and engineering pathways, run by Rural Press newspapers and circulated to over 323,000 readers across the Hunter region.

The Army Reserve Traineeship and Apprenticeship Program enables young people to undertake a traineeship or apprenticeship through HunterNet Group Training and to concurrently enlist with the Army Reserve for the duration of their training. Apprentices spend 75 per cent of their time with a civilian host employer and 25 per cent of their time with the Army Reserve. At Adamstown Barracks there are currently 20 heavy vehicle drivers, four armourer fitters and two chefs in training. This program is a partnership between the Army Reserve, HGT Australia and the Hunter Institute of TAFE. This regional skills commitment would be the envy of many regions in Australia. It certainly creates a culture of excellence and has allowed businesses in our region to cope with the skills deficit much better than most.

Last week, Jessica Paton, a chef at Wests Leagues Club at New Lambton, was named apprentice of the year at the New South Wales Group Training Awards. Jenna Doherty was named school based trainee of the year. HunterNet Group Training Australia, based in Broadmeadow, won the best practice category in the state, while the Hunter Valley Training Company was highly commended. But these dedicated organisations cannot do it on their own. They also need real support from the Howard government if we are going to fill all the skill shortages that currently exist. Instead, the Howard government has recently withdrawn funding from two of the key training groups in Newcastle. The Department of Education and Training New Apprenticeship Centre, DETNAC, and the Australian Business Ltd New Apprenticeships Centre have not had their contracts renewed in the latest round of tenders to provide apprenticeship services. This is despite the fact that DETNAC has been providing excellent support and services to local apprentices and businesses since 1998. Instead, contracts for the region have been awarded to MAS National, MEGT and Mission Australia.

It should be noted that the Newcastle region also covers the New South Wales North Coast, so I would hope that these new contractors will establish offices in our city. I know that both Mission Australia and MEGT have offices in Newcastle delivering other services and that Mission Australia intends to open its Newcastle new apprenticeships centre soon. MAS National appears to be a Melbourne based company, with no existing or prior links to our region. I would not like to criticise these companies before they begin their work, and I wish them well. However, with the determination of the Howard government to drive down costs in its contracting arrangements, or perhaps support some favoured companies, the needs of local communities are often ignored, as are the local knowledge, expertise and networking track record of existing companies. Between them, DETNAC and ABL currently provide 90 per cent of the services in the Hunter, so the government’s tendering process will see almost all of the services that exist having to go through a new provider. That does not sound efficient or sensible to me. It seems a very unnecessary shake out of services that have been delivered very well up until now.

DETNAC has an apprentice, trainee and employer satisfaction rating of over 90 per cent, yet has not been considered worthy of a new contract. Both groups also have a great deal of experience, a high profile and the essential contacts and commitment to our region to enable them to work effectively within our community. I understand that one major user of new apprenticeships centres in Newcastle will now access services out of Sydney so that they do not have to change providers. Other users have reported concerns about proper arrangements being in place at the time of the new arrangements coming into force on 1 July. We cannot afford a six months delay or a three-month delay in getting these services going.

At a time of severe skills shortages, if these new arrangements do not work out for apprentices or for businesses who rely on new apprenticeships centres, it will be necessary to hold the government to account. It will be their fault. In areas such as migrant health support services we have seen what happens when the government bungles its contracts to the detriment of the Newcastle community.

To go back to the legislation at hand, we support bringing forward funding to try to do something—anything—to get the government’s private technical colleges off the ground. But we know it is a limited response that has had more to do with pork-barrelling than building the skills of the nation. Newcastle is a region committed to training its workers; it always has been. Our dedicated local organisations will continue their good work. It is time the government came on board with some real solutions of its own. Unfortunately, the Australian technical colleges are not a real solution and will not build the future of this country.

Ken Ticehurst (Dobell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today, Australian industry faces a skills shortage in a number of traditional nation-building trades. If we fail to meet this issue head-on, our economy will suffer. Therefore it is imperative that we encourage more young people to continue with vocational and technical education. At the outset, I would like to remind the House that, during 13 years of Labor government, Labor’s answer to skills shortages was to place young Australians on the dole queue and provide Australia with ‘the recession we had to have’ and record interest rates which resulted in record bankruptcies and high inflation. We had house mortgage interest rates of 17 per cent and company overdrafts of 23 per cent. In direct contrast, this Australian government has provided an environment of strong economic growth, record low unemployment, low interest rates and low inflation.

Through the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill 2006, the government is encouraging young Australians into trades and to continue on to trade based self-employment or to open their own small businesses. That is what the Australian government is all about. When Labor was in office, no strategies were in place to provide opportunities for trade training or vocational education. In fact, the opposite was true. It was as though academic qualifications were the only thing a young person should have to face the world. The coalition government thinks differently. We are committed to building a nation in which a high-quality technical education is as valued as a university qualification.

Some 70 per cent of young people do not go directly from school to university and many choose to undertake vocational and technical education and apprenticeships. The Australian government values and respects these choices. The government is determined to ensure that the choice to enter a trade is valued by a young person’s peers and the broader community. The government is achieving this by working to turn around cultural attitudes, especially among young people, in relation to the traditional trades. Students will graduate from Australian technical colleges with a head start in their working lives. Technical colleges are an important part of the Howard government’s approach to meeting our nation-building skills needs; they are an investment in the longer term.

The main purpose of the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill is to allow the movement of moneys for the establishment of ATCs. The total funds of $343.6 million appropriated to fund agreements are in place with 13 consortia, and this is expected to grow to 16 by June 2006. Negotiations are continuing with other consortia with respect to moving towards funding agreements on a continuing basis. Given that the passage through the Senate of the original act, the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Act, was delayed by the Labor Party until October 2005, and therefore access to funds was not possible, it is an outstanding achievement to now have over half the funding agreements completed. The significant progress in putting in place funding agreements simply means that more expenditure will be needed in 2006-07.

In my electorate of Dobell on the Central Coast, trade qualifications are vital. The abolition of technical colleges by the states many years ago has meant that over the past few decades our young people have lacked training and skills pathways. The price we have paid is the severe skill trade shortages we are currently experiencing in many of our key industries. Members opposite do not seem to know that Labor caused this problem. Indeed, when I went to school at Granville we had a technical college. Many technical colleges existed around the Sydney suburbs. Many kids learned a lot of their hands-on trades at school. Those schools no longer exist. They were abandoned by Labor. It is the New South Wales government’s responsibility to look after the education of schoolchildren. Indeed, the additional funding the Australian government is providing represents more assistance to the state government to cover up their failures. And what have they done? They have held up the school based New Apprenticeships Access Program. Their workers compensation regimes are such that they severely limit work experience.

On top of the serious skill shortages that the Central Coast experiences, like so many areas in this country, we have a high youth population and a rapidly growing employment base. That is why the establishment of technical colleges is vital for the Central Coast. There are many students in years 11 and 12 on the coast who do not want to go on to university but want to study trades. Residents and businesses on the Central Coast are grateful that our local area has been chosen to house one of the 25 technical colleges. The unique set-up of the college, with the chance for students to undertake trade training while also completing their year 11 and 12 academic subjects, is a great opportunity for our region. It is also a good opportunity for local employers in the region to work with education providers to establish a college that responds directly to the needs of local industry—and that is exactly what we are doing.

The Central Coast Manufacturers Association, the successful proponent, is doing a fantastic job to get the ATC under way and has been fully supported locally by association members including Albany International, Sara Lee, ADC Krone, Gibbens Industries, Masterfoods, Adhesive Research, Gosfern, Thermit and Pacific Labels. These industries are further supported by the involvement of Australian Business Ltd, the Master Builders Association, the NRMA and the Gosford District Chamber of Commerce and Industry, just to name a few.

The Australian technical colleges will provide young Australians with the opportunity to commence their training in a traditional trade through a school based apprenticeship at certificate III level while at the same time completing academic subjects leading to their year 12 certificate. That is right—the ATCs are not a duplication of TAFE, as Labor likes to suggest. To so suggest is a clear indication of a misunderstanding of the program. The bill will allow up to 7,500 young Australians per year to undertake high-quality education and vocational training. It will be relevant to the nation-building trade career they choose. ATCs will be centres of excellence and the expectation is that they will employ the best possible staff. The colleges must be able to attract and retain the best teachers available, and their capacity to offer attractive working conditions such as performance pay is crucial to their success. This is unlike the TAFE system, where one size fits all—and that is why we were dumbed down to mediocrity in many cases.

ATCs will not charge additional fees. The colleges will be schools, government and non-government, and in respect of recurrent schools funding will be funded on the same basis as existing schools. The Australian technical colleges initiative is an innovative program that offers significant flexibility to allow each college to operate in a manner that best meets the needs of industry and students in the region in which it is established. Having the flexibility to expend funds as they are required is important for the continued success of the program.

In saying this, an Australian technical college must fulfil certain specifications. It must specialise in a particular trade and offer a trade or trades from at least four industries, including metal and engineering, automotive, building and construction, electrotechnology and commercial cookery; it must have links to or be a registered training organisation; it must have a governing body chaired by a local businessperson and consisting of local industry and community representatives; and it must offer flexible employment arrangements.

The New South Wales state government has an ideological opposition to school based New Apprenticeships. Instead of listening to local communities, state Labor has held up the granting of a licence in my electorate. That has meant the technical college for the coast, which by all rights should have been up and running in 2007, has now been held back to 2008. I understand it has been standing in the way of the establishment of technical colleges in various locations across the country, particularly in New South Wales and Western Australia. But this is typical of the Labor Party. Instead of spending its time and energy coming up with good policy, it prefers to play games and obstruct the passing of vital legislation and vital programs that are in the best interests of our communities.

To conclude, a technical college is great news for the people of the Central Coast and puts this region at the forefront of the delivery of vocational and technical education for students undertaking years 11 and 12 schooling. Nationally, this bill will strengthen Australia’s economic base through the introduction of a flexible, highly capable and specialised training system. It should also be noted that the funding of TAFE is a state government responsibility; it is not a federal responsibility, as we have heard many members opposite purport. It is not up to the Howard government to fund TAFEs. That is up to the state governments.

ATCs are about meeting the demands of industry and business, and these technical colleges will provide a highly skilled workforce and put an end to the skills shortage that the Labor Party at both the state and federal levels has helped to bring about. I commend this bill to the House.

Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill 2006 is directed at an issue that I think is close to the most fundamentally important question facing the future of Australia. It is a misconceived strategy on the part of the government. But the elements that are producing this approach are real, they are serious and they are something long overdue for our nation to come to grips with, and that is the future of learning in this country; the future commitment of Australia as a nation to underpinning all economic activity with skills, with learning and with a change in culture so that we as a society can continue to prosper, can continue to be a first-world nation with a diverse economic base, with a strong manufacturing sector, a strong services sector and a strong interrelationship with the rest of the world.

When you look at the basic statistics of learning in this country you see there are a number of extremely embarrassing elements. Most notorious is the fact that in recent years we have been the only country in the OECD, the only country in the developed world, where public expenditure on universities and TAFE—on post-secondary education generally—has been falling. We are the only country in the developed world where that is occurring.

There are other statistics too that we should be very concerned about. For example, in Australia only about 67 per cent of people in the age group 25 to 64—therefore, the dominant working age group—have year 12 or equivalent qualifications. That might sound like a reasonably healthy number, until we compare the equivalent levels in other developed nations, which are overwhelmingly well ahead of us. Nations like the United States, Canada and the stronger nations in Europe all have levels in the vicinity of 80 per cent or more. We are stuck at 60 per cent. In other words, on one of the most crucial measures of the level of aptitude, the level of skill and the level of capability to participate in and add value to the production process, we as a nation are significantly behind comparable nations around the world. There are many other aspects of this picture that we could look at to see that Australia is underperforming in learning and that unless we change course, unless we really dedicate a much greater degree of effort and priority to our national commitment to learning, we will start to fall behind the rest of the world.

It is well understood now, even in those who are not particularly engaged in politics or broader social and economic analysis, that the structure of work has changed dramatically in modern Western societies. In particular, the extent to which there are unskilled or very low skilled jobs in large numbers has changed dramatically. So the kinds of jobs that were there in their hundreds of thousands or millions when I was in the process of leaving school are, in many cases, simply gone. The purely unskilled job is rapidly becoming a thing of the past.

What that means of course is that we have to change to reflect those changes. They have been driven primarily by technological change, the fact that things that human beings used to do are now being done by machines or computers. That has spread from physical work, from manual labour, all the way up the chain into all kinds of other activities including skilled, manual labour and brain work, office work and clerical work. It have had a profound impact on the production process as a whole. And some of these changes are more dramatic than we really recognise. Even relatively mundane things like the introduction of the mobile phone have had an extraordinary impact on the way people work—the way we do business, the way business activities are structured, the way work is structured and the way we relate to each other economically. Some countries have been good at adapting to these changing realities and some have not. Sadly, largely, particularly in the last 10 years under the Howard government, we are in the latter category.

Although I concede that the underlying imperative in the community that has driven the government to propose the Australian technical colleges is a legitimate one and a real one, and therefore the impulse which has generated this response from the government needs to be acknowledged, I think it is a misconceived response. I think it is a response that is largely designed to enable the government to play politics with the states. It is designed to enable them to pretend that they are doing something and to try and denigrate the state governments, which of course are all Labor governments, rather than produce a big-picture, serious, comprehensive, all-embracing and open solution to the problem, engaging with the states and leading and driving the states.

Let’s face it: the state governments are not perfect. They certainly stand to be criticised over the years on a number of fronts on these issues, so I think a bit of Commonwealth leadership would be very helpful. But it has to be genuine, it has to be constructive and it has to be engaging. It should not be about simply playing politics. Essentially, that is what the Howard government’s Australian technical colleges strategy is about—simply manipulating the politics and contributing a relatively modest amount of money to ultimately a mickey mouse program which has had a very vexed commencement and is really not likely to lead to very much in the way of substantive change.

This is part of a broader pattern with the Howard government that to me is perhaps close to the most distressing feature of this government. I tend not to get angry too often, and there are not that many things that have made me really emotionally angry about this government. There are plenty of things I disagree with and plenty of things I think are wrong. One of those things is the vilification of asylum seekers, the vilification of a group of people. The way that asylum seekers have been treated has particularly angered me personally.

But the other thing that stands out for me is the deliberate denigration of learning by this government, particularly under the former Minister for Education, Science and Training, now the Minister for Defence, the member for Bradfield. He developed this technique of dog whistling to people who have not been to university, particularly less educated older people who grew up in a different era, when very few people went to university. The former minister developed this technique of appealing to them and essentially sending out a message saying, ‘Look, it’s the taxes of all you hardworking real Aussies that are paying for all these people in universities, these ivory tower types who are not in the real world, who don’t really contribute very much and who are off on all these wacky things—and we all know the sort of rubbish they get up to, don’t we?’

That message has been very overt. It has been supplemented by statements from the Prime Minister to the effect that leaving school after year 10 is perfectly reasonable, that it is a great idea, not a problem. In some cases, that is not unreasonable. Of course, in bygone eras most people did. There is nothing wrong with that and there is nothing wrong with people who 20 or 30 years ago did leave school after year 10 and in many cases went on to develop skills on the job or in different forms. But that is in the past, and it is certainly the wrong message to be putting out to 15-year-olds now—a totally appalling message.

But underneath this has been a deliberate attempt to reach out to a particular mentality that is widespread in the Australian community, which has long been there, and that is a resistance to learning and education, a denigration of learning. There is a set of values that is based on the idea that practical people do not need knowledge or learning, that things like books are basically for pointy-headed oddballs and that knowledge and the acquisition of skills and capabilities, particularly through academic learning, is somehow second rate, dirty or peculiar. That kind of mentality is a reflection of Australia of the past. It has been one of those quirks of our national character that we have been able to afford, to tolerate and I suppose in many respects to consider to be just one of those quaint, interesting little things that characterises us as a bit different from some other countries.

We can no longer afford that attitude because it is going to be a recipe for long-term economic disaster in this country. Increasingly in modern Western societies, and broadly in all economies, we are going to prosper only on the basis of genuine skills, knowledge and capability. This means that not only will people have to be literate and numerate but their problem-solving skills, their analytical skills and their ability to absorb complex information and to make decisions and choices—all of those things—are increasingly becoming important to an ever-growing proportion of jobs. I look even at simple things like the modern motor vehicle and the job that a skilled mechanic now does to repair or maintain a car compared with what that was 30 years ago. The degree of complexity and the degree of sophistication involved in that task is light-years ahead of what that task was 30 years ago, and you can see the same thing in manual jobs, in mental or brain based jobs and office jobs throughout the entire society.

So it is absolutely appalling that we have leading figures in the government sending out these powerful signals saying: ‘Learning doesn’t matter. Learning is really for oddballs, for nerds, for those pointy-headed types who aren’t practical.’ That is an appalling message and is something which the Howard government stands to be condemned for. If there is one thing that is going to ensure that Australia prospers and that we have a broadly based, diverse economy with a strong manufacturing sector and a strong services sector that will continue, it is going to be a profound national commitment to learning in all its forms: learning on the job, learning in TAFE colleges, learning through apprenticeships, learning in universities, learning in schools and learning in preschools. We need a national crusade to inculcate a much stronger commitment in our community to the values around learning.

The great irony about the government’s position on these things is that, although most of us on this side of the parliament would not give much credit to former Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies for many things, the one thing that I think he deserves enormous credit for and that history will judge him and his government very kindly on is substantially increasing the commitment of our nation to learning, most obviously through the federal takeover of universities but also through the creation of a set of values in the postwar generation of valuing learning and of understanding that for personal advancement, for family advancement and for national advancement learning is fundamental.

I am profoundly grateful for the fact that I grew up in a family with parents whose view of the world was profoundly influenced by that Menzies’ message and who, therefore, brought up a family where commitment to learning was a very strong value. History suggests that that occurred in many parts of Australia in many families. Although there would be many things we would criticise the Menzies government for, I think sending a powerful set of signals to the Australian community valuing learning is something it needs to be recognised for. The Whitlam commitment to education, which I think is equally or perhaps even more profound in the context of changing Australia’s attitude to learning, was built on the initial work that Menzies did. So I think it is both sad and reprehensible that the current government panders to antilearning prejudice in our society.

The final observation I want to make is to return to the more specific aspects of the bill to indicate that, although this is not the solution, it is certainly directed at a very serious problem. I call on the government to engage in a wider dialogue with the community and with the states—because they have some things to answer for on this front—to deal with this problem. The problem is that, increasingly, with things like the abolition of technical schools in my home state of Victoria, the merging of secondary education into a single one-size-fits-all approach—well intentioned though it was—has become a giant mistake in retrospect. What it has done—and I expect similar things have occurred in different forms in other states—is create a set of secondary education institutions that are totally permeated with signals to teachers, administrators and students that are all based on university entrance. The way the school now operates is built around the ultimate objective of maximising university entrance. That in itself is not a bad thing—it is obviously a good thing—but inevitably there are a substantial proportion of students who either do not want to go to university or have different aptitudes that will get reward and advancement in pathways other than university. They are ending up as second-class citizens in many respects in our school system.

I have a special school in my electorate called The Island, which is designed for students who have either been expelled or left school, typically around the age of 13. It has usually 60 or so students, overwhelmingly boys, and it has four streams: an automechanical stream, an engineering stream, a woodwork or furnishing based stream and a hospitality kitchen stream. They all rotate through those streams. It is designed to replicate school but in a way that is intended to prepare them for apprenticeships. The reason that these young people end up in The Island is that they are totally alienated by the school that they have been in, because they have a set of aptitudes and orientations focused on a combination of hand and brain skills—they are mechanically oriented or interested in traditional trade things—but they are taught in a context where, because university entrance is the ultimate goal of achievement for everybody, those things are inevitably downplayed and the sorts of things they are exposed to are predominantly things they are not really into.

It may not sound that dramatic. But I thought about this the other day and about doing a reverse role-play to illustrate it. When I was at school, I did woodwork in, from memory, first form and second form, which is now year 7 and year 8. Frankly, I was not very good at it. I did not really like it. I do not know whether there were rankings done in the class but, I suspect, if I was not bottom of the class, I was not far off it. I did not like it, I was no good at it and I did not have the kind of aptitude that meant I could naturally warm to it. Of course, as soon as I got an opportunity to avoid doing it, I did. I asked myself what my schooling would have been like and how long I would have hung around if 90 per cent of the subjects had been of that kind—things that I was not focused on, oriented towards, particularly good at or interested in—and if only a tiny proportion were things that I was good at or interested in. I suspect the answer is that I probably would not have hung around or I would have caused trouble or difficulty.

That is the experience that these young people have in our education system. We should not need to have a school like The Island. Great though it is, it is a manifestation of failure in the education system. When you talk to the young people at that school, as I did on a visit a year or two ago, one of the things that strikes you is how bright they are. These kids are not failures. These are not kids who are dumb or who have some problems; these are kids who basically have an orientation and a set of aptitudes that are not being adequately catered for in the school system. Although there have been some attempts in some states through greater VET in Schools programs and some recognition of apprenticeship programs in schools, it is not enough. The one thing I would say about the technical colleges approach of the government—misconceived though it is—is that at least it is an attempt to deal indirectly with what is a very serious issue and a very important question.

We have to do two things as a society. We have to absolutely reinvigorate this nation’s commitment to learning but also ensure that that commitment is to learning broadly defined—learning that is inclusive; learning that acknowledges that we are in the business of producing great professors and great plumbers, that we need people with skills and capabilities right across the board and that in varying dimensions everybody needs to be treated equally. Everybody needs to get equal recognition, even though specific institutions will be different, the way we organise things will be different and funding arrangements will be different. In an overall sense, we as a society should be saying to people, ‘We don’t particularly mind what you do; we just want you to engage in learning. We want you to better yourself, to improve your circumstances, to improve the circumstances of our society and to put yourself in a position where the children that you may have in the future will get a better start in life because of what you’ve done’ whether through a TAFE college, a university, an apprenticeship or whatever—that is detail.

We have to radically alter our attitude in this country. We do not want to see any more celebrities standing up and boasting about the fact that they have never read a book. To me, that is an insult, and people who do that should be absolutely condemned for the social vandals that they are. We do not want to see this in this country. We want to see people who are promoting commitment to learning, but we also need governments that ensure that the opportunities for learning are sufficiently diverse and inclusive and that people with all different kinds of attributes and aptitudes have genuine opportunities to learn and are not being pushed into kinds of learning that they are not suited to or not interested in. That is where we have gone wrong in the past in this country. I think we need a real revolution in learning in this country. This is not it, but at least the government is starting to address the question in some way. (Time expired)

Stuart Henry (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Certainly, it has been interesting sitting here listening to the member for Melbourne talking about his aptitude and lack of aptitude for his woodworking skills and the associated hand skills required to carry out those sorts of tasks successfully. To some extent I can relate to that, having at an early age developed some dexterity in my manual skills. One thing for sure that the member does have an aptitude for is rhetoric. That is certainly a great skill to have when you are on the opposition benches. One thing about the Howard government is that it is very strong on action. There is no doubt that the Australian technical colleges will provide a great opportunity for those young people with a desire, commitment and aptitude for developing their hand skills, manual skills and their interest in trade training.

Of all of the responsibilities of governments, education and training would have to be at the top of the list of priorities. Even when you consider the other top priorities such as economic strength, health, defence, infrastructure, crime, environmental protection and essential services, it is hard to see any aspect of modern life that is not impacted dramatically by our education and training levels. Challenges like our current skills shortages ripple through the community in many ways. That is why we should leave no stone unturned and no opportunity postponed in our efforts to provide the best education and training system we can. Unlike the previous Labor administration, the Howard government is moving strongly in that direction. That is in spite of strong opposition by the state Labor governments, which are being dragged kicking and screaming to the negotiating table to ensure that we get a national approach to vocational training and apprenticeships. That is happening. The government was indeed leaving no stone unturned when it introduced the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) legislation in 2005. Now just one year later it is leaving no opportunity postponed by introducing the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill 2006 to respond to the even better than expected reaction from the community in establishing Australian technical colleges across the nation.

Vocational education and training is a particular passion of mine and I am very pleased to rise to speak in support of this bill today. Skills shortages are being experienced across the globe. Here in Australia we have skills needs across a variety of industries, including automotive, building and construction, electrotechnology, commercial cookery and manufacturing. These industries offer young Australians strong, secure, diverse, challenging and rewarding careers, yet many of the jobs and training places go unfilled. It is incumbent upon all members of this parliament, on both sides of this House, to approach this situation with an openness, a thorough understanding of the issues and a willingness to be innovative and responsive to the needs of young people, industries and employers in those industries.

It is vital that we teach skills relevant to the current and future needs of industry. It is equally vital that we help our young people find and achieve their potential in a career which suits them and offers them all a prosperous and rewarding future. This means we need new approaches to attracting more young people into training for what are sometimes called the traditional trades—although I would point out that many people who make easy proclamations about the trades have precious little knowledge of them. My own years of experience working with tradespeople and employers in various trades comes from my previous role as executive director of two trade associations—the Master Plumbers and Gasfitters Association and the Master Painters Association—and also as Chairman of the World Plumbing Council. These experiences have taught me well that we must redefine what we mean by traditional. There are certainly aspects of tradition we must retain, protect and promote, but we also need very non-traditional thinking so that we can keep the core values of trades in a modern, rapidly-changing context.

The development of the Australian technical colleges is designed to do just this. Basing them in the final compulsory school years and ensuring they are closely linked to conventional school curricula, leading vocational training practices and local industry leadership gives trades the value they deserve and the focus that young people need. Local industry and community representatives have a leadership role in the governance of each of the colleges. The direct involvement of industry and community leaders will ensure that the skills taught to students match those skills required by local businesses. Students will be trained in these skills through a school based new apprenticeship which leads to a nationally recognised vocational education and training qualification. At the same time, students will also complete the academic subjects required for their year 12 certificate. It is essential that all state and territory governments recognise the need for and the value of providing school based apprenticeships to meet the career aspirations of our young people and the skill needs of our employers.

The barriers to these outcomes in Western Australia must be removed by the Minister for Education and Training, particularly now that the Premier has stepped in to fix the OBE issue. By offering high-quality training facilities and an instruction link to workplace requirements, the colleges will raise the profile and status of vocational pathways in schools and demonstrate that these vocational courses are genuine career paths for students which should be at least as valued as going to university. The colleges will provide high-status, high-quality opportunities for young people to build a genuinely exciting career for themselves in traditional trades.

This concept has been so well received by the community that Australian technical colleges are being established faster than predicted. In 2005 the government announced that it would fund the establishment of 25 Australian technical colleges across the nation by 2009. Four colleges are already up and running. They are out there making it happen for their students in under a year. And the news gets better: at least another 20 are in development and expected to be operational some time in 2007.

This result is a credit not only to the government’s initiative in establishing the colleges but also to the industry and businesspeople who have responded so positively to the opportunity and are getting right behind this initiative. This bill is sheer good news. It does not affect the overall budget of $343.6 million for the program; it merely brings forward funding which had been allocated to the 2008-09 financial year so that it can be available in 2006-07. This is a happy obligation indeed, as it is in response to a galvanising of action in communities themselves. How short-sighted would it be for any of us in this House to turn a blind eye to these efforts and tell these people that they will have to wait because of accounting issues in Canberra? In my opinion, opposition to this bill would be exactly that: a slap in the face of people who are out there doing their best for their industry, for young people and, as a result, for Australia. If you, like me, know the sorts of people involved in establishing Australian technical colleges, you too would be inspired by their efforts and collaboration.

For example, in my own electorate the Australian technical college Perth South is set to commence in February 2007 and proposes to operate as a multicampus, non-government senior secondary college in Maddington and Armadale with a satellite campus based in Rockingham. My colleague the member for Canning and I were very pleased to be present for the signing of the Perth South ATC funding agreement by the Minister for Vocational and Technical Education, the Hon. Gary Hardgrave, at the ATC site in Maddington earlier this month—a great occasion for the local community. Securing this ATC for the south-eastern suburbs of Perth has been an important goal since my election and I am proud to be involved in providing these additional training opportunities for my constituents and their families. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the member for Canning for his hard work and support in securing the Perth South ATC, which will benefit the residents in both of our electorates.

I would also like to acknowledge the fantastic efforts of the City of Gosnells, particularly the Mayor of Gosnells, Councillor Pat Morris, and the CEO of the City of Gosnells, Mr Stuart Jardine. The City of Gosnells has shown real leadership in improving and developing suburbs in the south-eastern corridor of Perth and has worked closely with both Don and me to secure positive outcomes for its ratepayers and our constituents. I am also very pleased to be able to advise that Councillor Pat Morris, Mayor of the City of Gosnells, and her CEO, Mr Stuart Jardine, have been visiting this parliament today. It is great to have this opportunity to speak in support of their efforts on this occasion.

Our electorates will gain enormous benefits from the presence of the new ATC, as will the member for Brand’s electorate. Despite the member’s constant carping, and despite what we heard from the member for Melbourne earlier, about the Howard government’s policies to address skills shortages, it took Phil Edman, the Liberal candidate for Brand, to work with the minister and secure the satellite campus of the Perth South ATC for Rockingham to follow shortly after the development of the campuses in Maddington and Armadale. The member for Brand made no effort to secure additional training and employment opportunities for his constituents that come with the presence of an ATC campus—in fact, he seemed rather nonplussed when commenting on it in the local newspaper. His commitment to vocational training is mere rhetoric, limited to union based training, ignoring any alternatives and certainly ignoring opportunities for his own constituents provided by the Howard government. This is somewhat underpinned by the huge level of teenage unemployment that we as a nation experienced during his period as Minister for Employment, Education and Training—34.5 per cent teenage unemployment in those years, an absolute disgrace.

Like all Australian technical colleges, the Perth South college is a model determined locally and driven by local industry and business. In the Perth South case, the college is being established by Stirling Skills Training Inc., which is both a registered training organisation and a Jobs Pathway Program provider, in partnership with the cities of Gosnells and Armadale, and the Armadale Redevelopment Authority. The college is well supported by the Housing Industry Association, the Master Builders Association, the Motor Trades Association and local employers. From the outset, the college will provide an integrated years 11 and 12 curriculum offering a relevant academic program, business skills training and an initial focus on the key trade areas of automotive and building and construction. Training in electrotechnology and metals and engineering will also be offered from 2009.

It is a truism that the future prosperity of our country and, indeed, the continued growth of our nation’s economy depends in large part upon the availability of a skilled and flexible workforce. The workforce must not only be world class in quality but also be capable of meeting the needs of Australia’s industry, which operates in an increasingly aggressive and volatile environment of competition at home and abroad. The resource and construction sectors are great examples of this. The Skilling Australia’s Workforce legislation introduced in 2005 created this government’s new national funding arrangements for vocational education and training.

The Howard government has committed an investment of nearly $5 billion in the future of skills training and skills development by the end of 2008. This included nearly $580 million provided to the states and territories last year, representing an increase of $175 million over the 2004 figures, which equates to an increase in real terms of 3.2 per cent. When we consider this government’s other vocational education and training initiatives, the investment over four years will together amount to a record $10.1 billion. It is important to note that this funding is not the sort for which industry associations or training providers have to jump through unnecessary hoops. Instead it is the sort of funding that enables people to just get on with the important matters at hand: facilitating the best possible outcomes for Australia’s young people and for those crucial Australian enterprises looking to develop their workforce for the future by taking on trainees and apprentices. The Australian Chamber of Commerce has said:

Without doubt ATCs mark the beginning of a bold new approach by the Australian Government as part of a suite of strategies to address Australia’s skill shortage problem.

I am not sure I can say it better. It also says:

ATC graduates will be highly skilled individuals, gaining skills from industry experience and capable of running their own businesses in the future. They will be nurtured by their industry of choice and encouraged to stay there. Future study options will be available to them and they will provide role models to younger students.

In fact, such a student is sitting in the gallery tonight. She happens to be my young 16-year-old daughter, Harriet. She is the sort of young person who will benefit greatly from this contribution to education and vocational training by the Howard government—which is providing options, providing flexibility and providing choice in the career pathways that young people may take in the future.

I also concur with the ACCI’s comment that one key contribution of Australian technical colleges is the potential to achieve cultural change on how we view vocational education and training. I feel privileged to have worked for so long with people who have been trained in the trades. Many of the most intelligent, innovative, skilled and personally successful people I have met gained their formative education through trade training. To me, it has always seemed ill informed, narrow-minded and short-sighted that we often act as if university is the be-all and end-all of education. A strong university sector is, it goes without saying, absolutely fundamental to Australia’s future in terms of both its research and its education contributions. I am only arguing that we need a way to reassert that vocational education and training is just as important for us to take seriously at a national level. It is just as important that we communicate this with educators working directly with young people, crucially with the parents of young people and, ultimately, with the young people themselves.

I have been greatly heartened by the Howard government’s consultative and constructive approach and its commitment to working towards real change. In developing the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Bill 2005, the government consulted with key stakeholders and received strong support for its direction and strong leadership for real change on vocational training. We are enjoying the lowest levels of unemployment and highest levels of economic prosperity in some 30 years; but, as I have observed in this House before, that situation brings with it a number of challenges and its own set of responsibilities. We must not allow the prosperity of the generations to follow us to be undermined by either an unwillingness to reform workplace relations or a lack of investment in developing the skills of the workforce of tomorrow.

The original bill establishing Australian technical colleges sent a strong message to the Australian community that vocational and skills based training is valued and, indeed, vital for the future prosperity of this nation. They heard us, they agreed and they responded. They got together and started making things happen, not here in parliament but in the local communities where change actually becomes real in people’s lives. Businesses, schools, industry bodies, local government agencies, training providers, employers and others are working together even better than we had hoped. This bill of amendments is a mark of respect for their response and a vote of confidence in their efforts. It says: you listened to us and responded; we are listening to you and responding. This is how it is supposed to work. As I said earlier, this amendment bill is pure good news. I wholeheartedly commend it to the House.

Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill 2006. I spoke on this some time back, in June last year, when the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Bill 2005 first came before us. I raised some matters of general concern about the government’s proposals then and I continue to have concerns. I queried whether directing the funds to create the 25 new colleges was in fact good public policy and to what extent it was an adequate response to the nation’s skills crisis.

You will recall that at the time the Australian technical colleges were first announced the Prime Minister himself said the colleges were the ‘centrepiece of our drive to tackle skills shortages and to revolutionise vocational education and training throughout Australia’. It seemed to me then and it is the case today that that statement was overblown hyperbole. At best, if the 25 colleges went ahead, producing in the vicinity of 7,500 tradespeople in the years 2010-12, how on earth was that revolutionising vocational education and training and tackling the major national issue of skill shortages? It was a drop in the ocean. At best there would be 7,500 trained tradespeople when everybody estimates that the skills shortage today is in the vicinity of 100,000 people.

I have listened to the contributions from government members and the constant refrain seems to be that the skill shortages that this nation faces are the consequence of a booming economy and a decline in unemployment rates. That argument does not fit the regional picture that we in the Illawarra face. For example, the most recent data shows that in the Illawarra the unemployment rate is still very high—probably the highest of all the regions—at 8.9 per cent. In May the teenage full-time unemployment rate was 36.8 per cent—an absolute disgrace. You cannot argue that the skill shortages in the Illawarra have arisen because of a booming economy and low unemployment. The facts just do not back that up. When one looked at the proposition of public funding to establish a new Australian technical college, one wondered what the efficacy of that commitment would be. At best, 300 students in the Illawarra would get the chance of doing courses in the new technical college facility, but that college is not up and running and the skills crisis that my region faces is not going away. It is getting worse every day.

What is the purpose of expending public funds to build a parallel system when the TAFE system in my region is more than adequately coping with the range of pressures that are on it? I will give you an example. If this college was established in the Illawarra, there would be 300 trained tradespeople probably by the year 2012. In the last two years, we have placed 220 unemployed young people into apprenticeships, because through our TAFE system we have been able to provide six months of pre-apprenticeship training, courtesy of the commitment made by the state Labor government. On top of that, we have had some modest funding from the federal government. But every time we go to the federal government it is like drawing blood out of a stone. An investment of $100,000 by the government each year has seen 220 young unemployed people in my region placed into apprenticeships. So I contend that there are different ways of addressing the youth unemployment issue linked with the skills crisis.

Debate interrupted.