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

I was making the point in my introductory comments yesterday before the debate on the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill 2006 was interrupted that in my view the Prime Minister had engaged in overblown hyperbole when he talked about the new Australian technical colleges as being ‘the centrepiece of our drive to tackle skill shortages and to revolutionalise vocational education and training throughout Australia’. In terms of the latter part of his comment about revolutionising vocational education and training, there is no doubt that part-inspiration for these new technical colleges was the desire by the Howard government to force and implement its industrial relations agenda in the creation of these new colleges. The claim that the colleges are to be the ‘centrepiece of our drive to tackle skill shortages’ is just a lot of hyperbole.

The Prime Minister and members on the other side of the chamber seem to want to run the line that the skill shortages that have emerged are symptomatic of a booming economy and low rates of unemployment. I made the point yesterday that that correlation does not compute in the region I represent—the Illawarra. The Illawarra currently has one of the highest rates of regional unemployment. The most recent data shows unemployment at 8.9 per cent and full-time youth unemployment at 36.8 per cent. Almost 40 per cent of people in the 15- to 19-year-old age group who are looking for full-time work cannot get it. At the same time, we have huge skill shortages. So to say that these colleges are going to address this very serious problem is unbelievable.

As to an assessment of whether these colleges are good public policy and good expenditure of public funds, I do not believe that to be the case. There are other, much more cost-effective ways that you can tackle skill shortages and youth unemployment. I cited the example of a project that has been very successful in the Illawarra by which means 220 unemployed young people—who would have been part of that 36.8 per cent statistic—have been able to do a six-month pre-apprenticeship training course at the TAFE institute. When they graduate they have the equivalent of a first-year apprenticeship. They are much more easily placed with an employer if they come out with that level of qualification. Yet every year, as the committee that oversights this program, we have to go knocking on the doors of ministers to try to extract a miserable $100,000 from government to help us support this project. The state government, to its credit, has made a huge investment. It funds the six-month pre-apprenticeship courses that enable these young unemployed people to come out with the equivalent of a first-year apprenticeship.

In the Illawarra we have already placed 220 young people, at a minimal contribution from the federal government, and yet the government is talking about investing a huge amount of public funding to create a parallel system, to create a new technical college. There are no stated deficiencies in the ability of the Illawarra Institute of TAFE to respond proactively to the needs of our community. The problem has not been caused by a booming economy and low unemployment rates. As I said earlier, that does not hold in my electorate. The problem has been caused because the government has been asleep at the watch.

Numerous organisations, including credible organisations like AiG and ACCI, have drawn the government’s attention to the skills crisis year upon year. Rather belatedly, the Howard government have come to realise that there is such a thing as a genuine skills crisis, but it still will not accept responsibility for being asleep on the watch, saying, ‘We just have to accept this happens because of a buoyant economy.’

I do not accept that. In my view, the government can blame nobody other than itself for allowing this crisis to develop. According to independent advice from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research, in 2004 there was a four per cent drop in the number of trainees and apprentices in training nationally in Australia. In relation to my own electorate, I put a question on notice to the government to track what was happening in apprenticeship training in the Illawarra. I asked what had occurred from 1996 onwards. By the government’s own admission in the answer to my question on notice, the number of trades and the related workers in training—that is, apprentices in training—in the traditional trades fell from a level of 880 young people undertaking training in 1996 to 870 people undertaking training in 2004. So we were training fewer people in the traditional trades in 2004 than we were in the first year of the Howard government. Having 870 young people in training in 2004 was in fact a marked improvement on what was happening in the early 2000s. In 2001 the number of people in training had fallen to only 630.

This is not something that has occurred overnight. This has been part of a long-term trend and the government failed to take heed of the alarm bells ringing. So, in my view, it is right and proper for the opposition to query whether this initiative is good public policy. We do not oppose the bill, but we are suggesting in our contributions to the debate that there are other creative ways of addressing the skills crisis. It seems amazing that the government can find the allocations to create a parallel system of TAFE colleges when we know that for years there has been a huge underspend in the technical and vocational education area, particularly on enabling our TAFE system to meet the unmet demand.

As I say, I have major reservations about the proposal because it does not deal with the issues confronting the people I represent. Both the young unemployed and the businesses, predominantly small businesses, are crying out for skilled labour now—not in 2010, not in 2012 but now, today. What is the government’s response to that? Nothing. At best they think that 7½ thousand students graduating from these colleges, if they all get up and running, will solve the problem. It will not.

The decision to establish these colleges will barely make a dent in the skills crisis. At best we will see 7½ thousand students go through these colleges when they are fully operational. But there is a question mark about whether they will all become fully operational when we have only four up and running and one of those four has only one student enrolled. The 7½ thousand students who would have gone through the colleges represent only two per cent of all Australian students in years 11 and 12. The overwhelming majority of senior secondary students, let alone the huge numbers of young unemployed that I spoke about earlier, will have no affinity and no connection with these colleges. Businesses in my electorate tell me they cannot afford to wait year after year for action from this government. They are crying out for skilled labour now, not in four or five years time. We all know that we have an estimated shortage in the vicinity of 100,000 skilled workers. The graduates from these parallel, alternative colleges will provide just a drop in the bucket in dealing with this crisis. Having 25 new colleges training a maximum of 7½ thousand students who do not graduate until 2010 to 2012 is, in my view, a totally limited and inadequate response to a crisis which everyone acknowledges is imposing severe constraints on our future economic capacity.

So let us look at what has been achieved in terms of the Prime Minister’s statement that these colleges are to be the ‘centrepiece of our drive to tackle skills shortages and to revolutionise vocational education and training’. We know that there are supposed to be 25 colleges, but 20 months after the announcement there are only four open for business. Each of the 25 colleges was supposed to have 300 students enrolled in years 11 and 12, which was in keeping with the promise that something like 7½ thousand students would graduate. How many students are in fact being catered for in these colleges? Gladstone technical college in Queensland has but one student enrolled. No-one can tell me that that is not a wasteful expenditure of public funds. There are fewer than 300 students enrolled in the other colleges on the Gold Coast and in east Melbourne and Port Macquarie. There are 300 students at four colleges rather than 300 students at each college. Yet our Illawarra apprenticeship committee has had great trouble getting a miserable $100,000 commitment to a program that has already placed 220 young unemployed people into apprenticeships in the Illawarra.

There is no word on exactly how many of the 300 students in the four colleges are actually new to vocational education and training, who are learning a trade for the first time in a new college rather than just continuing their vocational studies at a school with a new name. A whole year after the tenders closed we have only 12 funding agreements out of the 22 announced by the minister. Three regions have had no announcement on the preferred bidder, let alone on whether a college might open. We do not even know whether they will open at all. I know there was some talk about Illawarra being provided with one of these colleges. I have not heard any more. I know there have been endless negotiations and discussions, but 20 months after the announcement where is the college proposed to be in the Illawarra? Is it ever going to eventuate? Wouldn’t that money be better diverted to the existing TAFE system and to the project I have referred to which has shown success on the ground in my electorate?

I want to also point out that there are genuine concerns about whether these colleges will see the light of day when one looks at the underspend that has occurred. The report of the opposition senators on the Senate Employment, Workplace Relations and Education Committee said:

A lack of financial transparency surrounding these Colleges is of concern. The Government has, at two Senate Estimates hearings, refused to provide details of the 11 funding contracts signed with individual Colleges. Advice from the Department given to this Committee at the Budget Estimates in June 2006 showed that as of 30 May 2006 whilst $185 million has been committed to the Australian Technical Colleges only $18 million has been spent. This is out of a total Budget of $343 million over five years.

The Opposition notes the provisions of the Bill which seek to introduce a regulation making power to allow for funding changes between program years without the need for further resource to legislation.

…            …            …

This proposed section would reduce the extent of Parliamentary oversight of this program which is regrettable. Spending to date indicates that current expenditure and training targets may not be met and Opposition Senators look forward to the opportunity to scrutinise any future regulations made under this new power.

So, with fewer than 300 students currently enrolled, businesses and families in my electorate are going to be waiting for a very long time before they reap any benefit from the government’s promises. We cannot afford to wait too much longer because, I repeat, unemployment statistics at the end of May show that in my region the overall unemployment rate is 8.9 per cent and the youth full-time unemployment rate is 36.8 per cent. We have a huge skills crisis not just among the traditional trades. Surprisingly, at the top of the shortages list are kitchen hands. While all this has been happening, we have had a very successful apprenticeship pilot program that has placed 220 young unemployed people into apprenticeships. But trying to get money out of this government is like trying to draw blood from a stone. I think the Prime Minister’s rhetoric about this being the ‘centrepiece of our drive to tackle skills shortages’ is well short of the mark and the government would be well advised to look at projects that are working on the ground and fund those in a sensible way, instead of trying to establish an alternative, parallel TAFE system.

Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to rise today to speak about something that I have been passionate about for many years, having been an employer and trainer of apprentices for over 30 years. It was interesting to listen to the debate on the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill 2006. I note that the New South Wales state government are rolling out a set of trade schools. I wonder why they are competing with their own TAFE colleges. It seems to me that the money would be better invested in ensuring that their TAFE programs on the ground are actually well funded and able to deliver training all across New South Wales. But I do welcome their decision to roll out trade schools. I certainly hope that my electorate—and that of the state member for Murrumbidgee, Adrian Piccoli—will be a recipient of one of these trade schools, which will hopefully complement the technical college that I have been sincerely lobbying for since the Prime Minister’s announcement of the Australian technical colleges.

Let us go back to those 13 years of Knowledge Nation, when I was in business training apprentices and when and the value of apprentices and of trades and services was worthless as far as the Labor federal government were concerned. They were concerned only with ensuring that every child went to university, regardless of whether or not that was their chosen career path. That put an enormous amount of peer pressure on parents: parents felt that they were failing their child if they did not send their child to a university. I am not saying at any stage that our children should not go to a university—of course they should. But around 30 per cent of Australian students went to university while 70 per cent were not given the opportunity. Instead, they were slugged by Labor states—and by coalition states, when they were in power a long time ago. They were not given any incentive or opportunity to attend TAFE and get into the trades and services.

In fact, employers have always had to fund their students going to TAFE. They have had to fund the payments and they have had to adapt their workplaces while their students had block releases for TAFE. So the entire cost of a student going to TAFE to do a worthwhile apprenticeship in a worthwhile trades and services area—whether it be electrical, automotive, airconditioning, concreting or fencing—had to be paid for by the people themselves. The apprenticeship was not considered worthy of funding by the Commonwealth Labor government and the state governments. Why? Because people were interested only in this incredible Knowledge Nation, in getting every child into a university and in putting pressure on parents so that they felt they had failed their children if they did not direct them to university. Most of these children (a) did not want to go to university and (b) wanted to get a job, so university would not have been the appropriate place for them.

There is a desperate need to build this nation, and you cannot build this nation with academics alone. I believe the people on the ground who have apprenticeships and go on to get a trade certificate are the real nation builders of Australia. They are the people who can actually put together the concrete foundations from which Australia can move forward with a roads system, an infrastructure system, an electrical system and a motor vehicle system. All of these things are required from tradespeople, the people who have always been made to feel as though they are not as worthy as somebody with a degree. I think that is a crying shame. I am not allowed to say ‘disgrace’ in this House anymore, so I think it is a crying shame.

Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is a disgrace!

Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is. It is a crying shame that this took place and that these people were left behind. The crisis with the skills shortage has not been the making of the Howard or coalition government over the last 10 years; it is a result of the 13 and perhaps more years preceding, not just the former federal Labor government but a mix of coalition and Labor state governments. All parties here are responsible for what has transpired.

There has been an unfair and biased view toward anybody who wanted to enter into a trade or service—and it still exists. It simply still exists. The pay differentiation is absolutely appalling—I will have to find a new word. These young people are doing four years of study in order to qualify and then be put on a very low wage. Where are the unions on all of these issues?

There is a need for us to cooperatively work as a nation—state and Commonwealth—to ensure that our students are given all of the choices and options available as part of their prevocational guidance in their school years. Schools should not just concentrate on how their HSC results or their academic excellence stack up when their results are advertised each year. More than 70 per cent of children in all schools—whether they be state or private schools—need unqualified attention, and they deserve this. They should not be put at the back of the classroom if they want to pursue a trade or service course in, say, year 10. They should not be discounted as not being able to succeed.

I have said it time and time again in this House: if you did a poll or a survey of the owner-operators of small to medium businesses and of many large businesses across Australia, you would find that few of them would have a degree. Few owner-operators would have been through a university, yet they are contributing to this nation’s economic worth. It is time that they were recognised. When they are out at a social gathering and the issue of education and degrees comes up, it is time that they were not made to feel less worthy because they do not possess one. It is time they were recognised for the valuable nation building that they put in place.

I find it surprising when I hear debate and discussion from the opposing side in this House, because they are supposed to be the supporters and representatives of these hard-pressed workers out there in the community. Let me tell you that they fall short, and so does everybody else, as far as I am concerned, in raising the worthiness of people in Australia who have done very worthy courses in trades and services and who have come out with a certificate of qualification. I only have to look at the business that I was in and at the work of the panel beaters there to say that these guys are pure geniuses. What came into the workshop was a mangled mess and what went out was better than a new vehicle coming off a showroom floor. Yet, are they recognised? No, they are not. They are made to feel as though they are not worthy when they are out in a social situation because they do not hold the fundamental university degree. That is sinful.

Finally, what we have is recognition—belated, but it is happening—and I commend the Howard-Vaile government and the minister for putting forth these technical colleges. There has been a crying need for this to take place. The measures will be very positive in rephasing our funding to meet the expected expenditure for the Australian technical college initiative in 2006-07 and to introduce some flexibility to move funds across calendar years to match actual expenditure. The establishment of the Australian technical colleges will enable our industries in the Riverina, which are just champing at the bit, to come on board and to start co-sponsoring apprentices and trainees to address the ongoing skills shortage across the Riverina. We have a great legislative framework to roll out these technical colleges.

Whilst I greatly support this bill—and I have been making these wild statements and speeches in the House for about eight years now—I have some concerns about what we have at the moment. I am concerned that I do not have one in the Riverina. I desperately need to establish a technical college in the Riverina—preferably in the western Riverina. The western Riverina has enormous support for the establishment of a technical college. Again I encourage the minister to look at us as a very viable opportunity. I convened a working group representing industry, the community, the education sector, local government and the federal government, with me as its representative. In February 2005 we submitted an expression of interest for a technical college to be located in the western Riverina.

My electorate of Riverina is very enthusiastic about everything. People are very motivated politically; they are a very active electorate and clearly keep me on my toes by demonstrating these things. They are enthusiastic about having an Australian technical college in their region. Like other areas across Australia, the Riverina continues to endure severe skill shortages, which are impacting on our future growth and development opportunities. Recently, I saw it reported that the government had threatened to terminate proposals for colleges in Dubbo, Lismore-Ballina and Queanbeyan due to a lack of community support. I felt quite enraged by this, because here I am out in the western Riverina, ready to roll, ready to go and saying to the minister, ‘Choose me, choose me, choose me.’ My people are absolutely devoted to getting one of these colleges up and running.

I am constantly approached by constituents in my electorate, particularly business owners and employers in the western Riverina, to help them. They are struggling and are very desperate to find skilled and non-skilled workers. There is a need for non-skilled workers out there as well. Whilst I talk about trades and services and people being involved, the world cannot go on without non-skilled workers. They need to be recognised and they need to be valued. They have so much to contribute.

I think that the bill before this House will eventually enable employers in my electorate to attract skilled staff into the electorate, particularly if they have a technical college that they can be a part of and cooperatively use to enable them to part-train people while they are in school. Those who are currently training apprentices often lose their staff to people who are unwilling to train and they poach staff. Worst of all, when our young people move away from our electorate, there are no opportunities or they are not given options through the education system. It is time for the education system to provide our children with all opportunities and all options for employment—not just the sexy ones but the ones out there that are needed to keep our regions strong.

The Riverina has worked tirelessly over the last 10 years to address our skills shortages. Some of our initiatives introduced in the region during the 10 years include the Griffith Enterprise Network, Career on a Plate, the Regional Skilled Migration Project Officer, the Western Riverina Higher Education Project, MIA Backpackers and Harvest Labour Study, the C Change Bureau, Country Week and Griffith and District Schools TAFE Link Day.

Right across the other areas of my electorate you see the Riverina TAFE working tirelessly to ensure that there is delivery of workforce participants with the appropriate accreditations to be able to enter into many of these careers in order to give employers an opportunity. An Australian technical college, particularly in the western Riverina, would offer industry an opportunity to sponsor their students. By doing so, industry would then be encouraged to become involved and take an interest in training and student development. Local industry has signalled its support for such a proposal and is very keen to become involved. We had a Leaders in Careers forum in Griffith. This forum attracted approximately 70 industry representatives and has resulted in the establishment of the Griffith Enterprise Network, primarily attended by local industry and training providers to try to develop a pathway to enable our young people to get gainful employment and career opportunities in our local region rather than export our very good local children.

Recently, a local job and training expo was run by Leeton-Narrandera LYNKS Program. It was a very good program and it attracted 84 businesses which showcased their local job opportunities to prospective students. A few weeks ago I launched the Compact program in Wagga Wagga. Helen Renshaw and her team are doing an absolutely extraordinary job in giving our students an opportunity to understand where their career paths might take them. One of the young girls who spoke on that morning succinctly addressed and put in perspective how important this program is that has been funded by the Howard-Vaile government. She has had a variety of placements within businesses and she does not know what she wants to do when she finishes her schooling. But what she does know is that she has had opportunities to experience businesses first-hand to assist her in making those choices. The Compact program is an excellent program. The leaders and providers are absolutely committed to the children of the Riverina and to giving them a choice.

The technical colleges are a great initiative, as I have said. There is a sincere need for me to attract a technical college. When I looked at the state proposal to roll out these state trades schools, I thought it provided a good opportunity for us to look together at how we can offer real choices to the children of the Riverina and beyond, particularly those in rural, regional and remote areas, so they can gain experience in a trade, service or workforce. I think it would be a very good idea if the state looked at how they could work cooperatively with the Commonwealth on their intention to roll out trades schools, rather than put these colleges down.

There is a desperate need for the state training organisations and apprenticeship boards to start looking at the way apprenticeships are delivered. In the 30 years that I have been involved in a trade and in the delivery of training and indentureships to apprentices there has been no change in the way in which apprenticeships are delivered, but there has been an absolute change in the way in which we now perform our duties. For apprentices, there is still a four-year mandatory period to qualify while they are on very low wages. Then when they do qualify they move on to equally low wages. There is a need for the apprenticeship boards to have a look at this and say, ‘We believe that you can complete a trade and a qualification in two years.’ There is no reason why an apprentice has to do four years. There is no reason why they should be deterred from taking on a valuable trade that they can operate in their own business in future. They can do that adequately in two years. Training and delivery practices have changed vastly over the years, yet the apprenticeship boards have never kept up with the changes. They keep on doing things in the same old way, deterring our children from having opportunities to meaningfully obtain a trade certificate in any vocation they choose and to go on and establish their own business and employ people. That is what people do in trades and services. (Time expired)

Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill 2006 but also to support the second reading amendment moved by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. It points to the continued failure to provide the necessary opportunities for Australians, the government’s incompetent handling of the technical colleges and its lack of accountability—an issue which is continually on show in this place as the government closes down more and more opportunities for accountability.

John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That’s a disgrace.

Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a disgrace. In essence, the bill has two purposes: one is to bring forward funding from later years in the forward estimates to this year and next year—on the face of it that is a good thing, but I will come to that in a minute; and the second is to allow future similar reallocations to be done by regulation as distinct from parliamentary enactment. We support the bill, but, as I indicated, we have moved a second reading amendment.

I rise to talk on this bill because after all of my years in public life I remain convinced that the greatest investment that a nation can make is in the education and training of its people. It is the investment that is the great enabler in our society. It enhances an individual’s opportunities; it also drives the economy and helps to shape a more tolerant and civilised society. As such, it is a benefit not just to the individual but to the community. It is a public good, not just a private good. Because it is a public good, governments not only must recognise it but must invest adequately in it. It is my charge that that is what this government has failed to do over the past 10 years.

Not only do we have to create opportunities for people to progress beyond secondary school but we must also provide for a system of lifelong learning. Learning and skill formation does not stop at secondary school—it does not stop when people leave their formal education. So governments are not only faced with the challenge of having to provide better funding for affordable education in the traditional sense; they must also fund a lifelong learning framework. We must be flexible and innovative in creating different pathways and options for skill formation. As I said before, it is an investment that this government has consistently failed to make at adequate levels over its past 10 years in office. That is the reason we face the skills shortages that beset this nation today, creating a constraint on the nation’s capacity and an underperformance in a global market of opportunity.

It was interesting yesterday in question time that, in answer to a question, the Prime Minister acknowledged that we have a skills crisis. But it is a crisis that he and his government have created by failing to make the necessary investment in skills. Whilst the 25 technical colleges are welcome, the response by the government has been inadequate. The Prime Minister also holds that part of the solution to this problem—in fact, his entire solution at the moment—is to turn to importing our skills. Labor has never opposed skilled migration as a potential contributor to our labour force in areas where particular skills are required which can only be provided by skilled migrants. This is particularly pertinent in much of regional Australia. But there has to be a balance, and we must provide training for our people first, particularly our young people. If we get that right it obviates the need to turn to importing skills through skilled migration programs.

In essence, the Howard government has been importing skilled migrants while at the same time turning people away from TAFE and university. It relies on the section 457 visas to ensure that we get skilled labour, but recent examples have demonstrated that these 457 visas have not been bringing in skilled people. A recent example is the Kilcoy meatworks, where 25 of the 40 people brought in under skilled migration programs went to unskilled work, not as slaughtermen as was sought under the 457 visa application. Here is another example of the quick fix that fails when it is not administered to serve the purpose for which it was introduced. The truth is that this government has no comprehensive plan—no strategic approach to addressing the real crisis that besets this nation: a massive shortfall in skilled labour. We have to invest in the future; we have to build our human capital.

The 25 technical colleges that this bill, in part, relates to were announced in 2004. Two years later only four of the 25 are in operation, teaching fewer than 300 students. That is my point about the inadequacy of this response. We are not opposed to the concept; we are not opposed to the bill; we are saying it is a totally inadequate response. This bill seeks to bring forward funding from 2008 and 2009 to 2006-07. On the face of it, that is welcome, but what is the reality? The establishment of a number of these technical colleges has been very problematic indeed. Bidders have failed to satisfy tender requirements. The Australian technical colleges for Geelong, Illawarra, Darwin and Adelaide North may not meet their projected start-up dates.

The Minister for Vocational and Technical Education, Mr Hardgrave, has threatened to scrap planned colleges in Dubbo, Queanbeyan and Lismore-Ballina not because of lack of community support, as the member for Riverina suggested in her recent contribution, but because these colleges will not sign up to the government’s AWAs. This is a circumstance of crossed priorities. We know the government will do whatever it takes to get its AWAs up—that is a matter for a separate debate—but this debate on the skilling of our people is too important to become hostage to another agenda. I ask the people in the public gallery which is more important: the training of our kids, thereby giving them opportunity in life, or the government’s insistence that AWAs be the determinant of the circumstances under which the teachers are employed?

Let us back the teachers under any circumstance so long as they deliver quality skills formation. That is not what this government is doing. Potentially three of these colleges will be scrapped, not because they failed to deliver what the bill purports they will offer but because the government is driven by this mad ideology on another front. This government introduced AWAs under Work Choices, but what choice is it when the teachers have no choice? They have to take AWAs. They cannot choose to collectively bargain, because the government will not let them. That is no choice at all. It is another example of the government’s naming bills exactly the opposite to what they purport to carry out.

John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is an utter disgrace.

Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As my good colleague points out, it is an absolute disgrace. There are other problems with these technical colleges. Essentially a lot of secrecy has surrounded them. We have had great difficulty in pinning down the specific funding for individual colleges. There is concern about the slow progress of implementation. As at 30 May 2006 only $18 million out of the $185 million has been spent. We are a bit confused as to why we need to bring forward money from two years out to spend this year and next year, when we have not even spent what was allocated for this year.

The minister said that the figure of $18 million that we have talked about was plucked out of thin air. It was not. The figure was given just recently in evidence to the Senate estimates. The department itself said that only $18 million has been spent. The truth is that it is a case of too little too late. This system that the government has introduced will produce its first qualified trades persons not next year or the year after but in 2010. What sort of solution is that to our trades crisis?

In his second reading speech the minister said that the Australian technical colleges initiative had been enthusiastically embraced by the community, industry and employers. He gave examples of Adelaide South, North Brisbane, Warrnambool and Geelong. All of these colleges are yet to open. The point I made before was that only four have opened: Port Macquarie, Eastern Melbourne, the Gold Coast and Gladstone. They have a total enrolment of 300. I was in Gladstone a couple of weeks ago. Do you know how many they have at their college? One person.

The government talks about this being a great initiative, but the truth is that this initiative is failing to deliver on the ground. In my home state of Victoria there is only one college for the whole of the eastern side of Melbourne. I represent the seat of Hotham, in the south-east of Melbourne. It is very interesting, because the one college, Eastern Melbourne, has two campuses. One is at the Ringwood Secondary College, an existing school in the electorate of Deakin—a Liberal seat. The other is St Joseph’s College, in Ferntree Gully, which is in the electorate of La Trobe—another Liberal seat. But there is nothing in my electorate or in the electorates of Chisholm, Bruce, Holt or Isaacs—all Labor seats. So ask yourself: is need determined by who happens to hold the seat? Is that the way we run government these days? Is that the control that this government is now applying—that the only people who get these technical colleges are those who vote for the Liberal Party? I have been unable to find any information about any activity at Ringwood. At St Joseph’s, if you go to the school’s website, you see that the funding appears to have been used to build a new technology centre and to extend existing training programs.

There can be a better way of dealing with this problem. When we were in office we made a real commitment to lifting the skills and the educational ability of our people. We massively increased schools funding by 55 per cent in real terms. We increased TAFE funding by 56 per cent in real terms, and we increased funding for universities by 60 per cent in real terms. We established the National Training Authority to provide an umbrella framework to overcome the differences between states so as to operate as a national system of training. Under the Working Nation program we sought to re-engage the long-term unemployed through Work for the Dole and training them—not just to do menial jobs but to acquire skills that were recognisable and to build confidence to get them work ready. That is a smart way to reconnect the unemployed in our community.

Labor established Netforce, a mechanism for extending the training regimes beyond the traditional trades into the new economy industries. In that period of time, we saw the doubling of the traditional apprenticeship system and the creation of another 36,000-plus traineeships. That all happened up until 1996, when this government came to office. And what did they do? They abolished Netforce, they abolished the Australian National Training Authority and they promised to boost apprenticeships, but all they did was to roll in traineeships and call them apprenticeships and claim that was the increase that they had promised during the election campaign.

Now it is reported that they will change the name again from New Apprenticeships to Australian Apprenticeships. You know how much that is going to cost? $24 million—just to change the name. This is a government that will spend a fortune on branding but nothing on real training. In its first two budgets this government slashed $240 million from the vocational education and training sector. It then froze funding until 2000. No wonder we have a skills crisis. Yet what is the response 10 years after that carnage? It is to announce 25 technical colleges, and two years later again we have only four, teaching 300 students. This is a government that does not build skills; it is a government that deskills, and it is why this country is being held back.

This skills shortage problem is nowhere more important than in regional Australia. It is now really holding back our regions and the ability of industries to build their communities, where these same communities are struggling to retain trained people. The Howard government in the most recent budget cut $13.7 million from an incentive program to encourage rural and regional businesses to take on apprentices.

Again I ask people to contrast their record with what we did when we were in office. We had a solution to this problem for the regions when we were in office. We set up area consultative committees under the Working Nation program to ensure that local training programs matched local industry needs. The objective—and I was Minister for Employment, Education and Training at the time—was to get a proper match between the local supply of labour and that which the region was demanding of it. The area consultative committees were resourced to undertake skills audits, to identify the skills and the deficiencies within particular regions. We involved the local chambers of commerce and industry in the task of identifying and working through the problem. We worked with them to establish what their demand for labour was—not what Canberra determined for them but what the locals said. Who best to understand their needs than those connected with the regions? That was the whole purpose of this program: tell us what your demand is and we will, through the Working Nation program, match it with the supply. We will give you the people with the training that is needed.

As a result of that leadership from the regions as well as the resources of government—the partnership that is so essential—300,000 jobs were placed by area consultative committees in the last six months of Labor’s term. What it demonstrates is that if you empower regions, if you ask them for leadership and you resource them, they get results. We still have the area consultative committees. I am pleased about that. They are a legacy that has remained. The problem is that they have not had the capacity for the last 10 years to continue the vital function not only that they were given but that they proved themselves adept at delivering on. Labor has demonstrated that you can address this issue. Regions need government support to empower and resource them to meet their needs.

I have recently been consulting widely with these same area consultative committees. Everywhere I go, these bodies are telling me that their region is being held back by shortages across a range of trades and industries. Some have been tasked, interestingly, by the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs as being agents in assessing their local need for skilled migration. But the area consultative committees can do more. They should be resourced to identify opportunities to train young Australians, unemployed people and people who get retrenched, so that they can meet the future needs of their region. This is the opportunity that the government is missing out on. By all means get the 25 colleges established—if they are ever capable of doing it. But the real opportunity is to have a national system for the training of our future and our people. (Time expired)

Kym Richardson (Kingston, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today in support of the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill 2006. This bill will provide the government with more flexibility when it comes to administering the funding allocated to the establishment of the 25 Australian technical colleges across the nation. It was interesting to hear the previous speaker, Labor’s member for Hotham, speak about Labor having the solution to and policy on this issue. I wonder if that was the same solution and policy that led to us taking over a $96 billion debt, unemployment at the highest rate ever and interest rates which, hopefully, are never to been seen again.

This bill seeks to bring forward funding which had been allocated to be expended in 2008-09 so that it will be available to the colleges in 2006-07. The fact that we are in this situation where we need to bring the funding forward is a wonderful thing. It means that those organisations which were successful in their bids to build and run an Australian technical college are getting on with the job of having those colleges ready and able to accept students as soon as possible. This bill also seeks to provide for a regulation-making power that will allow funding for a calendar year to be carried over or brought forward without the need for an amendment to the legislation.

These are practical amendments which will help to deliver on the Howard government’s election promise of providing 25 Australian technical colleges throughout the nation and are part of the government’s overall strategy to address skill shortages across the nation. These technical colleges will provide young people who wish to gain a trade with the option to gear their year 11 and year 12 studies towards obtaining formal qualifications in that trade.

One of the organisations in my electorate of Kingston was successful in its bid to establish a technical college in Adelaide’s southern suburbs. On the evening of Friday, 19 May, that organisation and I combined to hold an information evening for prospective students and their parents. We had been expecting approximately 100 people to attend the information evening and were both surprised and elated when we had to start bringing in more chairs to allow in excess of 450 people to hear about our college. The residents of the southern suburbs were excited about the opportunities which were opening up for young people in the area, and a large number of young people wanted to enrol then and there on the evening.

The success of this event highlights the demand in the community for the type of education we are striving to provide and the desire of young people to obtain a trade qualification. The need for this legislation highlights the success of this program with regard to finding good organisations to establish the colleges and their desire to get on with opening the colleges and educating students. In my electorate of Kingston, the organisation which has been successful in obtaining the funding to establish the college is the Port Adelaide Training and Development Centre, PATDC. The organisation has worked very closely with me and with local business groups since the announcement of these colleges was made, and it is dedicated to ensuring that their doors are open to year 11 students next year.

In the last three years, the southern suburbs of Adelaide have seen the shutdown of a Mobil Oil refinery and the closure of a local Mitsubishi plant. Since the closure of these two massive contributors to the southern economy and the loss of over 600 jobs from these two closures alone, federal, state and local governments, along with private industry and the wider community, have developed a blueprint to grow and develop our local economy. One of the central points of that blueprint is the need for a strong skill and technology base. The Australian technical college to be located in Adelaide’s south will provide not just a short-term solution to that skill and technology base but an ongoing, long-term one. In fact, as I stated before, we hope to have 75 people starting in 2007, and we believe that will grow to 125. In three years, instead of 300 people, we hope and envisage that it will grow to 450 young people.

The technical colleges we are dealing with in this bill will provide a huge boost for communities like those in my electorate. Not only do they provide hope for young people who are struggling with the challenges of academic study and desperately wish to pursue a trade, and not only do they provide hope for local businesses that, if they increase production and create successful businesses, they will be able to source enough skilled labour, but also they provide hope for the community as a whole. Communities like those in Kingston which have suffered job losses and plant closures like those of Mobil and Mitsubishi suffer a slump in morale and community spirit. An initiative like this and the location of a technical college in an electorate like mine can provide a massive boost, and has already done so, for the community.

This is an initiative aimed at training young people for the careers they want and getting them into jobs. These colleges will establish links with local industry to provide a pathway from training to work for young people, and I can assure you that local industries in my electorate are exceptionally supportive of the college and are lining up to ensure that the minute these young people leave year 12 they move straight into an apprenticeship in a local industry. At the end of the day these colleges are about the future: the future of our young people, the future of industry across the nation and the future of local communities. These colleges have across-the-board support out in the local community and are providing real solutions to very real problems. I have two grown sons who are currently completing trade qualifications—an apprentice plumber and an apprentice carpenter-builder—and both of them would have revelled in the opportunity to attend one of these colleges. The Howard government recognises that a trade qualification is just as valuable as a university education, and we are striving to provide young people like my own sons with adequate choices for their future.

The bill provides the flexibility needed to meet Australia’s skill needs as well as providing meaningful choices for our young people. For that reason, I commend this bill to the House.

Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Primary Industries, Resources, Forestry and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We could say the previous contribution, from the member for Kingston, was short, but I suppose it reflects the government’s lack of commitment to the important debate about apprenticeships. I know that, as a Bankstown boy and a graduate of the Western Sydney school of hard knocks, Mr Deputy Speaker Hatton, you know the importance of apprenticeship training. It has been at the centre of western suburbs activities for many years. In that context, this debate on the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill 2006 is of fundamental importance to Australia’s future growth prospects. It is about the skills of our nation and our capacity to attract and retain investment in Australia at a time when we, as a nation, are riding the resources boom. Potentially, the biggest barrier to continuing that resource boom is a lack of trained working men and women in Australia.

We all accept that apprenticeship training has become one of the critical issues. It is the issue that the companies I deal with as shadow minister for resources, forestry and tourism discuss on a regular basis. Even this week I have had some of the biggest resource companies in Australia in the iron ore, the coal and the oil and gas industries in my office discussing a range of issues. The issue they continue to raise and pursue with me is the lack of commitment of the Howard government to the all-important question of apprenticeship training. That reflects yet again the incompetence of the Howard government.

It is inconceivable that the government have failed to appreciate the fierce competition in industry to attract tradespeople in Australia at the moment. It is reflected by the fact that, for example, in Western Australia at the moment a bricklayer can earn $1,000 a day. A tradesperson in Western Australia in the resource sector can knock out $180,000 a year. There is only one reason they can attract those salaries and wages at the moment: there is a shortage of tradespeople. The government are responsible for that because they always like to talk about wage pressure, but you have to understand that wage pressure also reflects the importance of supply and demand in Australia. Their policy on the industrial relations front, therefore, is not about productivity and driving training in Australia but about trying to force down the wages of the lowest paid and the more needy in the Australian community—the hospitality workers, the child-care workers, the cleaners, the security workers. The semiskilled and unskilled people are demanding a bit of a leg-up in the Australian community.

I would have thought we should have had a policy which was about training all Australians, giving them all the chance to benefit from the opportunities that exist in Australia at the moment, whilst also saying to the less privileged in the Australian community that people have to do the mundane work that we expect to be done—like cleaning Parliament House, looking after aged people and looking after children in child-care centres—and that we should look after those people in a decent industrial relations system. I say that because the skills shortage in Australia at the moment is having a huge impact on wages and therefore has inflationary ramifications for the overall management of the Australian economy. You cannot isolate these pressures.

I would also go as far as to say that the shortage of skilled tradespeople has in fact become a real threat to our economic prosperity, given the production constraints it is causing. That effectively means that there are now barriers to investment in Australia. Once you start to lose investment, you lose it for many years to come because, when a particular multinational invests in another country, it creates a hub of investment activity and makes long-term decisions. It is not going to chop and change those decisions based on whether or not Australia, in five, 10 or 15 years time, resolves its shortage of skilled tradespeople.

This impact is being felt across many industries, particularly mining and tourism—our top commodities and service sector export industries. Indeed, only last month mining industry analysts foresaw production constraints for companies such as BHP becoming an issue much sooner than expected because of these shortages. If you have any doubts about that, just think about the potential development of Olympic Dam in South Australia. Hopefully, there will be approvals by the end of next year. Where are the tradespeople going to come from? Think about what is going on in the North West Shelf fourth gas train and the expansion of the iron ore facilities in the north-western area of Western Australia. Think about construction on the east coast—the duplication, for example, of the Gateway Bridge near the Brisbane airport. Think about the ongoing upgrade of the Hume Highway. Where are we going to get the operators and tradespeople? All we are going to end up with is more pressure on the wages system of Australia. That is why I say that, if you go to areas such as Gove, Groote Eylandt, Mount Isa, Karratha, Paraburdoo or Port Hedland, you just cannot see the tradespeople coming through when you see all the difficulties being faced by industry. I also say in that context that there is an onus on them to do more. I can think back over the last five, 10 or 15 years to when these companies closed their apprenticeship training centres. All of a sudden, they have realised that was a bad decision. Training was not a cost to running a business; it was an investment in their future. So they have also contributed to the shortage with a lack of commitment in the past, but they have learnt from the error of their ways on this issue.

On that note, while I appreciate the concerns of the Minister for Vocational and Technical Education, Mr Gary Hardgrave, in matching the needs of the unemployed within the mining industry, I believe this is merely another sign of desperation from a government that has failed to invest in vocational education over the last decade. I refer to the problem pointed out by the Minerals Council of Australia. They said that there is very little point providing government incentives for unskilled workers when it is skilled workers that the industry is crying out for. I am staggered at his naivety in acknowledging that the current unemployment incentive of a $25 a week living-away-from home allowance would not be sufficient. Whilst he is considering at the moment whether an allowance of $100 or even $250 would be enough, he might take a look at the rental lists in the Pilbara, for example, where the average housing costs are around $600 a week because of the expansion that is going on in that area.

In the tourism industry there is a current shortage of 7,000 positions and a forecast of an additional deficit of up to 15,000 people a year. The National Tourism Investment Strategy identified that 130,000 workers would be needed over the next decade but, with its current share of employment growth, tourism would only secure 45,000 workers. Tourism is so important in winning export dollars. At the moment we have an advertising campaign which is about encouraging people to come to Australia from traditional markets such as the United Kingdom, Europe and North America, but a huge priority is China. You have to understand that, if you want to attract and encourage these people and for them to tell others to come down to Australia, it has to be a quality product. Unless you have trained workers, you do not produce a quality product. That represents a long-term threat to the tourism industry in Australia. I recently saw this when I went to a tourism forum in Northern Queensland, where I discovered that exclusive resorts are considering closing some of their operations due to staff shortages. Who would have thought that would happen in the 21st century—a time when we have got a huge trade problem?

At the same time, new hospitality graduates are coming out of their courses and being picked up by the mining industry to feed the resources boom. The problem for the hospitality industry is that, whilst it might train a few people from time to time, it cannot compete on the wages front—which points to the need to do more on the training front.

While a boom time is contributing to shortages, it is the neglect of our vocational education training system over the last decade that has to be highlighted in this debate. I think there is also a problem in the community—not just a lack of commitment and leadership shown by the government. The community has got to accept that a university education is not the be-all and end-all of life. Apprenticeships are exceptionally important to the future of Australia. Just think about another problem confronting Australia at the moment. A tradesperson in their mid-20s can knock out over $100,000 a year. How are we going to attract and retain nurses and teachers on the salaries they are being paid at the moment compared to what is being achieved by a tradesperson? An apprenticeship is the right thing for young people to do. You do not have to go to university; do an apprenticeship. You will be better off, for example, than becoming—and this is a problem for the Australian community—a teacher or a nurse, because they are not appropriately rewarded. We have a huge problem in the rewards paid to those in some of our important occupations in Australia at the moment.

In Europe, master tradespeople are treated in the same way as those who receive doctorates. They have an important status in the international community, but not in Australia. For far too long we have downplayed the importance of apprenticeships. I think we need a system that elevates the status in society of a master artisan to that of someone with a doctorate. There is interestingly an organisation in Australia, the International Specialised Skills Institute, under the patronage of Sir James Gobbo, that is striving to do this.

But it is a more fundamental debate. We have to make sure that we lift the supply of tradespeople in Australia so that we can command international investment in Australia. This is about saying to the international investment community: ‘You want a stable political opportunity. Australia offers that—a very secure place for investment.’ Unfortunately, we are giving them another message at the moment, that we do not have the tradespeople to facilitate their investment in Australia. We have to get serious about resolving this problem.

What is the government’s answer? They have a special visa category for bringing in overseas apprentices. It is not good enough. I have young people in my electorate in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, where we continue to have a disproportionately high level of youth unemployment and long-term unemployment, who actually want an apprenticeship. It is about additional places supported by government. Do not ask me to put my hand up to give apprenticeships to kids from overseas. I am more concerned about kids in my electorate, in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, in the constituency of Batman. In suburbs such as Preston, Reservoir and King Island Park, kids are finding it hard to get through to year 10, let alone years 11 and 12. These are kids who cannot get an apprenticeship because of the lack of support for apprenticeship opportunities by the Australian government.

Let us stop running down skills in Australia. Let us stop treating an apprenticeship as a second-class opportunity in life. Let us say to the Australian government: ‘We’re uncomfortable, because of your failure, with importing unskilled workers at the expense of young Australians in the 21st century. We require additional resources.’ The Australian community would welcome additional resources in the TAFE sector. It is a sector in the Australian community that is always valued, as you and I appreciate, Mr Deputy Speaker Hatton, because we come from the western suburbs of Sydney. We historically had well-performing and respected TAFE colleges where kids went and did their apprenticeships. Maybe we also have to think about whether or not we should revitalise some of those institutions. There should not be competition between the Commonwealth and the state and territory governments; they should work together. It is about getting them in place on the ground. We have to reach that point in the very near future because we have neglected it for far too long.

Our problem is that the Howard government’s proposal will not produce a tradesperson until 2010. We need them now. The resources, tourism, energy and forestry sectors are saying to me: ‘We need them now. You’ve got to push this government to get serious about this debate.’ Only four of the 25 colleges are operating at the moment, with fewer than 100 students. Minister Hardgrave is all over the place, threatening to scrap some colleges while refusing to reveal funding arrangements for any of them. While we wait for new apprentices to appear from these bungled new technical colleges promoted by the Australian government, the Australian Industry Group predicts that in less than four years we will need an extra 100,000 skilled workers in Australia. Otherwise, we are going to drop the ball on the economic front.

It is now that we have to get serious about these issues. It is also about making some tough decisions. I do not see the government talking about, for example, the ACT government announcement of a fortnight ago. Chefs will now have an apprenticeship of two rather than four years. That is the way to go: streamline the apprenticeship system, concentrate on the skills and give the kids the support that they need. It is not just in the ACT. In Victoria the automotive engineering apprenticeship, by agreement between government, unions and employers, has now been reduced from four to three years, provided the kids do the three-month prevocational course in years 11 and 12 at school. It also means that their starting rate, once they leave school, is the second year apprenticeship rate followed by the third and fourth year apprenticeship rates in their second and third years. Think what that means to kids: a shorter apprenticeship and more money in their pockets. That is the way to do it—not with bungled announcements on Australian technical colleges and brawls with state and territory governments but with tripartite cooperation between employers, all levels of government and the union movement, which actually wants to assist these kids to achieve something in life. We have to get serious about this debate, because the response by the government has been all too inadequate. The government has to start cooperating at local, state and territory levels and with representatives of the Australian community and employers to get it right.

The cues are coming from the Victorian and Queensland governments. They have made very detailed statements about the need to completely review, trade by trade, the apprenticeship training system in Australia. It might be appropriate, for example, that we continue to have a four-year apprenticeship for electrical tradespeople. It is not for me to decide; it is for industry. Alternatively, in Canberra we now have two years for the training of a chef, a highly skilled person sought after not only in Australia but internationally. This is about immediate action to get people into the necessary skilled occupations so that they produce the goods, attract investment, increase exports and enlarge Australia’s economic cake into the future. If we do that, we also look after those people in retirement. It is about greater economic prosperity in Australia and looking after those people, our parents and our grandparents, who have built the opportunities that we now benefit from, including the resource boom. It is about attracting people now.

I refer to the figures from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research which show that, at the end of last year, there were 389,000 new apprentices in training compared to 390,700 in 2004 and 393,500 in 2003. This is, unfortunately, the lowest number of Australians in new apprenticeships since early 2003. We have to start looking at these figures. For the government, the problem is that the figures tell the truth. When you listen to the rhetoric of the government during question time, they tell us that we have record numbers of apprentices, but when you actually break down the numbers and look at the traditional trades you see we have gone backwards year after year. We have shortages at the moment in the traditional trades. I was shadow minister for employment and training in 1996 when the Howard government first came to office. We expressed our concerns then about hiding in the so-called overall apprenticeship front, which historically included the traineeships, what was really happening on the traditional trade front.

Unfortunately, our predictions and warnings have proved to be correct. It was a cover for doing nothing. It was a cover for not being serious about becoming an electrician, a bricklayer, a painter or a plumber—all the traditional trades that have served Australia so well over such an extended period. There was a debate in here recently about the Snowy Mountains scheme. Think about all the people who worked as tradespeople and who were trained as a result of that historic nation-building opportunity. Down through the decades we as a nation have prided ourselves on training good apprentices and good tradespeople. We are no longer a nation that can hold our head high on that front, because we have gone backwards.

I simply say that this is about a real policy debate—not these funny little technical colleges that the government likes to suggest are going to solve the problems. It is about real money for additional places and cooperation between all levels of government, the private sector and unions. That is what mum and dad want out in the suburbs in the Australian community. They believe in apprenticeships and they want the government to do more. They want the duckshoving to stop between the different levels of government. The Labor Party has said that it is going to—

Louise Markus (Greenway, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mrs Markus interjecting

Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Primary Industries, Resources, Forestry and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I see the member for Greenway laugh at the proposition that the government should help pay kids’ TAFE fees—that is no laughing matter to a young apprentice on a few dollars a week—and that we actually give them completion payments to encourage them to complete their apprenticeship. Why wouldn’t you think about that when you have about a 40 per cent drop-out rate? How do you shorten apprenticeships and encourage the kids? By giving them a few more bob through a review of the apprenticeship system and giving them the enthusiasm to complete their apprenticeship course.

Members such as the member for Greenway think the apprenticeship system and doing things like that for the kids in Western Sydney is a laugh. I come from Western Sydney and I know how important it is to them, as do you, Mr Deputy Speaker Hatton. This is no laughing matter. This is a very serious issue. It is about kids in the most disadvantaged suburbs actually getting additional apprenticeship places. It is about saying to their mum and dad: ‘We care about your kids getting some proper training in Australia.’ That is all we have heard government talk about for far too long—‘You don’t have to go to university.’

We have to focus this debate on real skills development and get incentives in place to get more meaningful and secure training opportunities in Australia. If you want to increase productivity in Australia, then skill the Australian workforce—skill them now and continue to skill them in the future. It is about time the Howard government recognised that, as a result of its massive funding cuts in the 1996 budget, it has progressively and continuously inadequately funded TAFE and VET Australia-wide to the detriment of our skills base and our future growth. Just go and talk to the resource and hospitality companies in Australia at the moment. If we do not do something serious about this, investment will be lost, regional Australia will miss out and the economic cake will be smaller because of the Howard government. (Time expired)

Debate (on motion by Mrs Markus) adjourned.