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

Thank you, Mr Speaker, I think! My question is to the Minister for Employment Participation.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I feel obliged to give a very humble apology. The Leader of the House is prompting me.

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

My question is to the Minister for Employment Participation. Will the minister inform the House about measures to improve the employment services system to help address the nation’s skills shortages?

Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment Participation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Newcastle for her question. She knows how important it is to have an effective employment services system in this country to help job seekers and indeed to help employers. The government is committed to getting more Australians into work. But we also want to alleviate the skill crisis—the skill crisis, of course, that was ignored by those opposite. We know that there were 20 warnings from the Reserve Bank of Australia and there were warnings from the Business Council of Australia, and the previous government did nothing to attend to this particular crisis.

While I was reviewing the employment services system, among others I spoke to employers and their peak employer bodies to find out what was missing from the current Job Network system. I am afraid I have to tell the House that I discovered that what was missing was exactly what employers needed—that is, work-ready employees with the skills to fill existing vacancies.

In response to this particular problem, the government’s new employment services system will be more effective for employers, particularly small business. It will provide the flexibility to tailor assistance to the individual needs of the job seeker. We must aim to ensure they really are ready for work when they turn up at the employer’s door. That is why the Rudd government, through the Productivity Places Program, is committed to massively boosting training places for job seekers in specific skills employers need.

Over the next five years we are rolling out 238,000 training places for job seekers at an expense of $880 million. Employment providers will be required to develop a strategy to meet the needs of local employers, like employers in Newcastle and other areas of the country, and will be rewarded with higher outcome fees where the provider has worked with the employer to fill the vacancy. The government will also be investing in employer brokers who will work with employment service providers and registered training organisations to connect industries that need staff with appropriately qualified job seekers. We have already received, I am glad to say, some positive feedback about these plans from employer bodies. In their submission on the proposed new system, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry have said:

ACCI welcomes the Australian government’s new employment services model and the greater emphasis on meeting industry demand and the provision of employment services.

They went on:

ACCI commends the new employment services model in tying incentive payments to placements made by employment service providers that replaces the former model of making a payment regardless of how the employment outcome is achieved.

We are very happy with those comments made by ACCI and others who have responded to the new model announced by this government. This approach stands in stark contrast to that of those opposite. As we know, they sat back for 12 years and did nothing with respect to the skill crisis in this country. The previous government thought they could sit back—like a lot of Tory governments do—and let the commodities boom fix the problems of this nation. They failed to attend to this particular matter. The Rudd government will not fail in that regard. We will be focusing on this issue. The government is modernising its employment services system by changing the focus to skill up the workers, to engage with employers and, indeed, to provide real incentives for providers to get people into jobs that industry need to fill.