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

I move:

That the House:

(1)

recognises that the Federal Government needs to invest in education and improving the skills of Australians to ensure that all students have the opportunity to complete Year 12 at high school and ensure that they have appropriate entry-level training for their chosen trade or vocation; and

(2)

condemns the failure of the Government to invest in education and skills for Australia’s future, particularly when the commodity boom moderates.

It is imperative for the future of Australia and Australia’s next generation that we recognise the need to invest in education and improving the skills of Australians. We need to ensure that all students have the opportunity to complete year 12 at high school and/or have the appropriate entry level training for their chosen trade or vocation. The federal government has shown a lack of commitment to investing in the future education and skills of Australians and continues to rely on the mining boom to support our nation’s economy. It is common sense that the more you invest in education, skills and training, the more you invest in your country’s future.

Labor is willing to commit to that investment. It has set goals for Australia’s education system that will ensure Australia’s economy remains prosperous and productive. We on this side of the House make a commitment to placing training centres in all secondary schools. We make a commitment to providing educational avenues to all young Australians so that they can achieve their best. Not everyone is suited to university and many see their future within the trades sector. Skilling up and learning a trade is something that Labor and I, personally, support.

For over a decade Australia’s education system has suffered at the hands of this federal government. Our education standards have slumped, and as a result Australia is now in the middle of a skills crisis. Australia no longer has a strong skills base that industry is able to draw on. Unless we educate our young people, Australia does not have a future.

The income and prosperity of an individual is often strongly tied to the education and skills that they have obtained over the years. Australia’s goal should be to have the most qualified and the most trained workforce in the world. Australia therefore needs to meet two great changes: one, to improve learning at high school level; and, two, to increase the skills of our workforce.

There are many schools within my electorate of Hindmarsh that are calling out for a greater emphasis on vocational education within their education program. The Labor Party has given them a solution. That solution is to give these schools the opportunity to obtain funding for trade workshops, computer laboratories and design labs. I am constantly approached by schools that have students who see their future in studies outside the university sector and who are well suited to pursuing future training in the trades sector.

As a nation we need to be aware that young people in the many schools in our own neighbourhoods need to be able to make choices that will make them successful and productive members of our society. We need to encourage vocational education and training within schools, thus building a skills base for Australia’s future. There is currently no national plan for the future education of Australian students.

Labor has made a commitment to increasing retention rates in schools from the current level of 75 per cent to 90 per cent by 2020. In the midst of a skills crisis, Australia needs to look at why young people are not continuing their schooling and not seeking further training or education. It is estimated that 120,000 Australians aged from 18 to 24 who have not completed year 12 are not engaged in the nation’s workforce. If these individuals were meaningfully engaged in the workforce, this would go a long way to meeting the estimated skills needed for the next five years.

We need to improve our retention rates at schools. We need to give students more opportunities at schools. We need to provide training in skills associated with a particular trade while allowing young people to continue to study and finish high school. Increasing retention rates has the potential to contribute enormously to our economy. Increased retention rates would add $9 billion to Australia’s economy by the year 2040.

In the future we will face more intense competition from regional trading partners such as China and India. In addition to this, our ageing population will take many of the skills Australia’s workforce has today into retirement. Australia needs to invest in the education of its students so that, as a country, we can be competitive in the growing global market. The mining boom the country is currently experiencing will not last forever. That is why it is important that we engage Australia’s youth—they are the key to our country’s future. As a country, we can no longer deny training opportunities to our young people. Nor can we allow our education system to focus on a ‘one size fits all’ policy. A versatile, innovate education policy will ensure our future. That is why Labor is investing in our nation’s education and in our country’s economic prosperity.

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

Is the motion seconded?

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Michael Ferguson (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the private member’s motion moved by the member for Hindmarsh. Investing in education is absolutely essential to improving skills in Australia’s workforce. It is all very well for Labor to monotonously attempt to target the Howard government in a political sense over its education policies and track record, but let us just consider the facts. They show that it is the Liberal Party side of politics that is in fact equipped to invest in education in an effective manner and in a way that actually values education and the educational choices of young people. And let us not forget the need to be able to position oneself to be able to make the hard decisions that are necessary for education reform.

I would say that one of the Howard government’s greatest achievements is to have inspired the Labor Party to show an interest in vocational and further education. We have not heard the Labor Party’s policies on vocational education until recent months. In fact I understand that the word ‘vocational’ did not even appear in their 2004 election policy. They do not have form on this. They have no interest, except for the fact that it is the Howard government that has recognised that the skills shortage in this country is not simply a skills crisis, as Labor would have us believe, but that it is a skilled labour shortage. It is a problem brought about by having more jobs than there are people to fill them.

An outstanding example of a Howard government initiative to boost the trade skills of young Australians is of course the Australian technical colleges. I am not sure that the member for Hindmarsh even mentioned the Australian technical colleges. They are a great success around the nation. They are a new innovation, and they are successful because of the quality of the facilities and the teaching staff and, very importantly, the close guidance and involvement of local industry, which of course knows the needs of industry better than anyone else. Two thousand students across Australia are already benefiting from being able to do their year 11, obtain their year 12 school certificate and start an apprenticeship at the same time and, having completed two years at an ATC, to have knocked off the first year of their apprenticeship.

The Australian technical college in northern Tasmania, which I anticipate the member for Lyons will unequivocally support in his contribution, which I will remain in the chamber to listen to, is moving ahead in leaps and bounds—much to the contrary, I suspect, of what the Labor Party said would happen. The northern Tasmanian ATC was obstructed, molested and harassed by the Labor Party. They said it would never work. They said that students would not take up the option, that the courses would not be filled and that, in any event, students would not come away with an effective apprenticeship until something like 2012—just lies; just hampering a really good and useful initiative for young people.

In fact, the opposite has occurred; there are only 150 places in an Australian technical college in its first year. In the northern Tasmanian example, over the Launceston and Burnie campuses, all the courses are full. They have been oversubscribed. That is a great testimony not only to the value of the initiative itself, the policies of the Howard government and the enterprise of former minister Brendan Nelson and the present Minister for Vocational and Further Education, Andrew Robb, in carrying these initiatives through but also to the local initiatives of our industries in northern Tasmania and to the students and the families who have taken their chances with it and are already finding that it is giving them wonderful skills and abilities with which to contribute to the local workforce.

It is a great success and it ought to be celebrated. I have to say that, when I spoke to a group of students in my electorate two weeks ago, I was asked a fair question: ‘Why is it that the Howard government gives more money to private schools than to government schools?’ It was similar to the wording in this private member’s motion, which is completely prejudicial and based on a lie promoted by the Australian Education Union. It hides the fact that recognition is given to government schools but that equally this government supports choice. In fact, you will find, on average, a government school student—taking into account the total taxpayer contribution—receives double the amount which the average student in a non-government school receives.

In concluding my remarks I simply again state on record that if we could have a legitimate debate on this issue, if we could have some honesty in politics and if we could have members in this place championing education, they would not say the things they do about the Howard government. (Time expired)

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The honourable member for Bass fails to give any credence to the history of the Australian Labor Party support for trade training, which goes right back to the workers institutes that grew out of the railway workshops of Invermay that we would otherwise not have any knowledge of. This motion is to point out the sad state of affairs that exists in vocational education and training today. Despite some half-hearted attempts by the federal government to develop new training places, they have concentrated on bricks and mortar and everything that does not count instead of focusing on courses, encouraging students to take them up by providing incentives to young people and also modernising our trade training and our skill development.

There are around one million Australian students in grades 9, 10, 11 and 12 in government, Catholic and independent secondary schools who could benefit from federal Labor’s trades training centres in schools program. At the moment, these young people are not being given incentives or encouraged under current programs to continue their education or get into training.

Many tertiary courses are just not suitable for young people and there is a need to start earlier to prepare them for the future. Federal Labor has come up with a real education revolution—one that would turbocharge the training and skills of the next generation of Australians. One of the biggest challenges we face in the future is to preserve our prosperity when the once in a lifetime mining boom comes to an end. We need to be able to fill the skills gap, a gap which is holding many of our enterprising firms back as they are unable to find the workers they need in order to grow.

Not every Australian kid wants to go to university and this plan responds to their needs. We must ensure that these students are given the best possible education and training so they can develop the skills and education they need to secure the job they want in the future. That means providing real career paths to trades and apprenticeships, real choices and real opportunities.

Many of the secondary schools in Tasmania, particularly those in Lyons, now do have some vocational education and training programs, but under the Howard government they have limited access to funds, therefore the programs are not as able to give the outcomes many would want and they have to travel to the cities for further education.

Federal Labor’s trades training centres in schools program would provide between $500,000 and $1.5 million to secondary schools to build or upgrade trade workshops and information, communications and technology labs; metal or woodwork workshops; commercial kitchens; hairdressing facilities; automotive workshops; plumbing workshops; graphic design laboratories, computer laboratories; and facilities for other trades to meet the day-to-day needs of employers. This would allow students to train and pick up work in their communities, which is vital to alleviate the population changes in country areas and areas where skills are being lost.

Federal Labor’s trades training centres in schools plan also includes a commitment to provide $84 million over four years to guarantee access to one day a week of on-the-job training for 20 weeks a year for all Vocational Education and Training in Schools students from years 9 to 12. It also includes a commitment to increase funding to the Enterprise and Career Education Foundation by $8 million over five years to improve linkages between schools and business and develop innovative, high-quality work and training programs for VET in Schools students.

This government’s program is just not working—those students that have started with the private colleges are leaving again, as they have no access to transport and accommodation, which is not part of the package, and they are having to pay for courses just as they would at university but without the access to services. This sort of arrangement just cannot work in country areas. (Time expired)

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I must say that I was quite amazed when I read the motion moved by the honourable member for Hindmarsh. I would like to recommend to him a reading of the Australian Constitution, which makes it fairly clear that education, particularly primary and secondary school level but also generally, is a responsibility of the states of Australia. Notwithstanding that, the Australian government are proud to have invested so much in education at all levels during our 11 years in office, to help to make sure that young people, who are Australia’s future, do have the opportunity to get one foot on the rung of the employment ladder. The Australian government are well aware that education is an absolutely vital means of achieving success, not only that of the individual but also that of the nation as a whole.

I do not know whether the honourable member for Hindmarsh was actually joking when he moved this motion seeking to condemn the government for what he saw as ‘the failure of the government to invest in education and skills for Australia’s future’, because let us look at what this government has done by way of education initiatives. For example, there is the Higher Education Endowment Fund, with its revolutionary purpose of self-generating funds for expansion of facilities at our universities. That is in addition to the moneys being spent on Australian technical colleges and on primary and secondary schooling. It is pretty clear that this government—having repaid $92 billion of Labor debt and not having to pay the $8½ billion that the former government was paying—has been able to invest in desirable social objectives such as improved education funding and other areas which, under the Australian Constitution, have not historically been the responsibility of the Australian government.

In five minutes it is impossible to cover the incredibly substantial program that the coalition government have in relation to education, so I will just have to cherry-pick a few items and mention them. When you look at what we have done since 1996 and what we are continuing to do, looking at the announcements in the most recent budget, one can see that the honourable member for Hindmarsh is probably playing party politics, which is understandable, given his marginal seat and given the election just a few months away. The reality is that there has not been any other government in Australia’s history that has given the investment in education at all levels that this government has.

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

Mr Henry interjecting

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Hasluck is perfectly correct. There seems to be so much buck-passing with regard to the states—and we see here the member for Hindmarsh suggesting that the Australian government should fund this, should fund that and should fund something else. I must say that the more I hear about buck-passing the more attracted I am to the concept of the Australian government taking over the area of education in this country. That way we would be able to have a national curriculum. That would mean that, in a situation where people are increasingly mobile, moving from one part of the country to the other—

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You want health and education?

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

The member for Lyons!

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

particularly, my friend, from your area of Tasmania to the Sunshine Coast—

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You want health and education. You are a centralist.

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

The member for Lyons is risking his health!

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Kids lose time because of the different educational curricula at different institutions. If we were able to have this national standard, a standardised curriculum, obviously students would be much better off.

But I said I was going to mention just a few initiatives. We have the $3 billion invested in vocational education and training, including a $1,000 payment to first- and second-year apprentices who are under 30 years of age, to assist in addressing the demand for more trades men and women. There is a $500 training voucher to assist apprentices to finish their course. There is assistance for those studying diploma and advanced diploma courses. These announcements followed the launch of some 25 technical colleges, many of which have now been established and are up and running and doing very well.

One valid point that the member for Hindmarsh did make was that there are many people who do not want to go to university and Australia’s desperate need has been in the area of trade training. This government has got the runs on the board and is continuing to get the runs on the board with that, and we have a plan for the future. We are positively achieving improved outcomes in those particular areas. We have a proud record of spending right across the education sphere—primary, secondary and tertiary, both university and non-university sectors. I think the motion moved by the member for Hindmarsh is unconvincing. He has come into the chamber and suggested that the government ought to be criticised when, in reality, we should be praised. (Time expired)

Laurie Ferguson (Reid, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Urban Development and Consumer Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Members on both sides of this House were highly amused some months ago when the member for Bass, who spoke earlier, imagined that he had been made a knight. However, today we see he has imagined what is actually in the motion before the House. I point out to him that there is no mention whatsoever of the continuing debate between private and public education; it was not mentioned at all. I also turn to another part of his contribution, where he talked about the great achievement of this coalition being to precipitate some comment from Labor with regard to the question of TAFE education. Quite frankly, this answers a question I have had in recent weeks, because I commissioned some work from the Parliamentary Library with regard to the educational performance of this country compared to other OECD countries, and the figures are alarming. Today the member for Bass has given us the answer as to why they are so poor and why this government’s performance is so dreadful. It is actually, as he said, the great achievement of precipitating debate by us.

Let us go through some of those OECD indicators. With regard to the expenditure on tertiary education, this country is now ranked only seventh among the 22 OECD countries. The proportion of GDP spent has declined from 1.7 per cent in 1995 to 1.5 per cent today. With regard to what households pay for their education in this country, in 2003, the latest figures available, 19.6 per cent of education expenditure was borne by the household sector. That had risen from 13.7 per cent in 1995. The situation today is that, of the 22 OECD countries, only households in Japan, Korea, New Zealand and the United States pay more than Australian households for their education. It does not end there. In 2002, the most recent figures available, Australia’s investment in knowledge was 4.1 per cent of GDP; in the league of OECD countries, Australia came ninth out of 22. With regard to expenditure on education as a percentage of GDP, Australia’s total expenditure is less than most other OECD countries. It ranks 18th on that indicator, out of the 22 countries.

As I noted, this is an alarming situation, as shown by some of these figures, which are on the public record and which are OECD comparisons. They are reputable, they are credible and they are acknowledged. The situation is that expenditure on education is not only poor; it has seriously deteriorated. And it is not only in that information that we see such comments. In a recent paper, John Edwards remarked:

The decline in Australian export performance in the years since 2000 has been quite unexpected. For the financial year 2001-02 the Commonwealth Treasury forecast export volumes would increase 5 per cent. They fell by 1 per cent. The following year it forecast an increase of 6 per cent. They again fell, this time by 0.5 per cent.

But as part of his solution he, like most people, homes in on one of the most important issues. He calls for:

… programs in education, training and retraining that increase the supply of skilled workers, and programs that support the basic science, engineering and research and development that no single business can make commercially viable.

And I should note that another OECD indicator indicates the alarming performance of this country with regard to maths and science graduates. So even when we are talking about our trade situation, the renowned economist John Edwards says that one of the crucial factors that is driving our situation backwards is this government’s failure—this country’s failure—on training.

A member on the government benches had the effrontery to say that Labor is supposedly talking about these matters for the first time. This week the government will put before the parliament the Social Security Amendment (Apprenticeship Wage Top-Up for Australian Apprentices) Bill 2007, which once again is just a reaction to Labor Party policies over the last year or so. They are catching up; they have decided they had better do something about it. It may not go as far as Labor went, but it is a last-minute gesture. I recently had the benefit of meeting some TAFE teachers. They pointed to alarming changes such as the government cuts in expenditure in 1996-97; the 16.3 per cent decrease in per unit funding from 1997 to 2001, when there was growth in enrolments; and the way in which this government is using TAFE funding to compel independent institutions to accept its Work Choices changes. We have a member on the government benches who is saying it is a state matter, but we have a federal government that is using its funding proposals to compel institutions to accept its Work Choices changes.

We have a classic situation of failure. We are not looking at what the Labor Party says; we are looking at what this country does in comparison to its major competitors—the advanced developed countries. We have failed on education, and that is acknowledged in the statistics. Labor’s recent measure to initiate training opportunities in high schools in this country—which at the same time will do something about the deplorable retention rates by raising them from 75 per cent to 90 per cent—is a step in the right direction. (Time expired)

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

The principle of this motion moved by the member for Hindmarsh is very important to Australia, but in reality it demonstrates the great hypocrisy of the Labor Party and its members. It was Labor policy that promoted university education above all else, at the expense of trade training. It was under a Labor government that we saw apprenticeship numbers decline from 151,000 in 1991 to 122,600 by 1993. It was under Labor that we saw teenage unemployment at record highs of 34.5 per cent, because there were no opportunities for either education or employment. In the early nineties the opportunity of finding an apprenticeship was almost as rare as finding a French antique clock on the mantelpiece of the average Australian home.

The country was in recession, as I am sure members opposite will remember. As we were all being reminded by Labor’s then leader, it was ‘the recession we had to have’. Labor has turned education in Western Australia into a complete disaster, with a huge shortage of teachers and total confusion among teachers and parents over the introduction of outcomes based education. In fact, it is reported in today’s West Australian that teachers of OBE English say they are still battling to make sense of a chaotic system that is changing from one week to the next. That is Labor on education.

It is one thing to ensure that all students stay at school until they complete year 12, but it is quite another thing to ensure that we create a learning environment that provides positive outcomes for these young people. The Department of Education and Training in WA have struggled for over 10 years to effectively introduce vocational pathways in schools. They are restricted by the inability to introduce school based apprenticeships, by a union movement that is strongly opposed to this and by Western Australia’s Industrial Training Act, which is prescriptive and only allows for time-served apprenticeships.

Ensuring that young adults have every opportunity to find their place in the world of work—with skills, knowledge and opportunity—has been my driving motivation since well before I decided to seek a career in parliament. Indeed, back in 1989 I embarked on a project to create one of the very first industry based training centres in Australia. With the support of the Master Plumbers Association and the Master Painters Association, in Western Australia we ultimately succeeded in that endeavour. The initial training focus was on youth at risk and the long-term unemployed, and then we focused on apprenticeship training and school-to-work vocational programs. So I have firsthand knowledge of the damage Labor did to our young people and those looking for employment at that time.

With the election of the Howard government in 1996, things started to change dramatically for the better—not only for this country and the economy but also for the education and training prospects of our young adults. In fact, training opportunities for 15- to 24-year-olds have increased dramatically, with the number of Australian Apprenticeship commencements in 2006 up by a massive 154 per cent since 1996. In 1996 there were fewer than 155,000 apprentices in training across the country, compared to over 400, 000 apprentices in training today. Participation rates have also increased significantly at school and in post-school education and training over the past 11 years. The year 12 retention rate has gone from 71.3 per cent to 75.3 per cent. Over the same period the number of 15- to 19-year-olds in school or full-time education has increased from 64 per cent to 68 per cent. The percentage of young people aged 25 to 29 with at least a certificate III qualification has increased to 56 per cent—up by 16 percentage points since 1996.

In the lead-up to the last federal election the Howard government made a commitment to establish 24 Australian technical colleges across Australia to assist in the establishment of school based apprenticeships and to provide an effective school based model for the delivery of vocational training with industry and employers.

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

(Hon. IR Causley)—Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting. The honourable member for Hasluck will have leave to continue his remarks when the debate is resumed.