Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Childcare and Early Childhood Learning) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Skills Australia Amendment (Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency) Bill 2012. This is a bill that seeks to establish the workforce and productivity agency in accordance with an announcement made by the government in their 2011-12 budget. This agency will take over from Skills Australia and will expand the mandate of Skills Australia.

By way of background, as I said, the agency was announced in the 2011-12 budget, and the budget indicated that the new agency would develop sectoral workforce development plans, undertake research, consult industry and disseminate information on workforce planning issues. The agency would also have responsibility for administering the national workforce development fund, a fund worth a total of $558 million over four years and incorporating the $200 million critical skills investment fund announced in the budget. So this bill is giving effect to a budget announcement, but the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Jobs and Workplace Relations announced in September last year that the government would bring forward the work of the agency. An interim board was appointed and it commenced on 1 October 2011, nine months ahead of schedule.

In a speech to the National Press Club the minister attributed the urgency of the new arrangements to 'rapid change in key industry sectors and workforce pressures exerted by the 'patchwork economy'. I am trying to give the House a sense of the patchwork nature of the introduction of this bill and these measures. A minister made an announcement. Like a lot of the government's announcements, it was designed to give the impression that, No. 1, the government cares about you and your future, and, No. 2, it is doing something to make that future more pleasurable and productive—in this case, in the area of skills.

But the coalition's concern about this bill is that, while there is a lot of fluff and activity around the edges, when you drill down, what is really going to change in this area? In any case, how can the government create the productivity and jobs that it talks about so often? The Prime Minister rattles off skills, job creation, productivity et cetera as if these things are happening in the Australian economy with a wave of her magic wand; but those who understand economics know that it is a productive, confident small business sector that enables people and organisations to invest, to look to the future and to have the courage and the faith—two things they do not really have when it comes to this government.

To go back to Skills Australia: it was, as we know, a creation of the Rudd Labor government. Just four years on, Labor looks like it believes it has already passed its use-by date. Skills Australia was a core component of the government's Skilling for the Future policy, which had a total price tag of $1.9 billion, with Skills Australia costing $19.6 million to set up. I think it costs about $5 million a year to run. This bill appropriates $25 million over three years. You can already see with this succession of ad hoc announcements and the way things are being cobbled together that there is some empire building going on. Clearly the government is indicating with this bill, this initiative, the speech by the minister in the Press Club last year and bringing the whole agenda forward nine months that nothing is really quite working and that Skills Australia has not achieved what it was set up to do.

Its mission in its own words on the Skills Australia website is:

To provide independent and high quality advice to ensure the government's investment in education and training promotes the development of a highly skilled workforce, increases workforce participation (especially among less advantaged groups), meets the needs of industry and increases Australia's productivity.

That is an enormous, sweeping scope. I am not particularly critical of Skills Australia. I have met with them on several occasions, and they have produced some good documents. They have produced some good research and have highlighted the challenges facing a diverse and changing economy in terms of its productivity, its future and its employment participation. They have been a good small organisation dedicated to this research and with the level of expertise to do these things.

So it has done a very good job and has provided comprehensive advice to government. The failure does not really lie with Skills Australia; it rests with the government—a government perhaps unwilling to heed the advice provided by Skills Australia in publications such as Australian workforce futures: a national workforce development strategyand Skills for prosperity—a roadmap for vocational education and training. Both of these are highly comprehensive documents making practical and achievable suggestions to boost skills and, ultimately, employment; yet the government prefers to focus on what makes for the best media grab as opposed to what makes a sound platform for our nation's future economic development.

This is a government that will be remembered for its training debacles. There was the highly vaunted Productivity Places Program where 31.8 per cent of job seekers dropped out prior to completing their courses. I would like to know whether the government has any expectations for improved completion rates for these courses. I could speak all day regarding the failings of the Productivity Places Program. However, I will keep it short and restrict myself to reminding the House about the rorting of the program by some providers and the fact that there was no consideration given to just how many security guards and certificate II qualified retail assistants the economy needed at that time. Let us face it: this government has let down job seekers—and not just with foolhardy programs such as the Productivity Places Program. Thousands of job seekers have found themselves forced onto a training treadmill at the behest of this government. With the virtual abolition of Work for the Dole, job seekers are being pushed into training for their mutual obligation activity. Yet these courses are not leading to real employment outcomes. The point has been reiterated by Andrew Forrest, in particular, regarding Indigenous Australians, some of whom have multiple certificates yet have failed to find real jobs. We need a training system that provides Australians with real job prospects.

This new agency sees another three members added to the existing board of Skills Australia—or formally added, because they were actually added in September last year—and of course additional funding. But I turn to the membership of the board to note that the unions are represented with two members. There is no representative from the training sector, and this point was remarked upon by training providers in their submission to the Senate inquiry. Where this new agency really differs from Skills Australia is that it will have responsibility for the administration of a $558 million Workforce Development Fund plus a $20 million fund to allocate to unions and employer organisations. So, again, the government has managed to find a slush fund for their union friends. Given the recent and highly publicised mismanagement of union funds, I find it outrageous that they would be so blatant about funding their union cronies.

I turn now to the National Workforce Development Fund. This $558 million fund is intended to provide a co-contribution for training. The government intends that this fund will train 130,000 people, with an estimated allocation of $4,292 per person. The National Workforce and Productivity Agency will supposedly identify the key areas of skills shortage for the direction of these training dollars. I am concerned, however, that for some employers the required contribution may still put training out of reach. If you are a small business and you are asked to make a 30 per cent contribution—I think that is the requested contribution under these rules—to the training effort, it just might be too much for you as a small business. It might not be too much for a much larger business to put in their required contribution of 50 per cent, but I do not see this as being particularly small business friendly.

Given that there is a forecast training shortfall of more than 250,000 skilled employees over the next five years, it will be an increased challenge to ensure a match between skills expansion and work opportunities. It is vital that training produce the skills that industry is prepared to pay for. This will not happen if the agenda is warped by the government having to keep its favourite stakeholders happy.

On the topic of training, I raise something that many business owners have raised with me as I have travelled the country. Many do not see the need for their staff to spend months undertaking entire certificate-level qualifications. Instead, their preference would be for the employee to undertake certain skills sets—modules or components of various courses. We do need to give far greater consideration to flexibility in training, and employers should be able to tailor the training needs of their organisation as best suits them. This may also grant us a greater capacity to improve productivity and go some way towards meeting the forecast shortfall of 250,000 skilled employees by focussing instead on the particular skills sets they need to undertake their work. So, while I recognise that the OECD measurements are made on the basis of qualifications completed, there does need to be a recognition within the measurement and within the datasets which are looked at and which feed into government policy that there is not always a need for a complete qualification and that in up-skilling or simply getting the required skills for a job you may not need a completed qualification. When the government demands entire qualifications, I have some sympathy because that, as I said, is the OECD measurement request. But they need to do better; they need to be able to demonstrate what is really going on in the training market.

The Senate inquiry submission from the Queensland government highlighted that there is evidence that the purchasing of training by both the states and the Commonwealth is fragmenting skills investment and duplicating effort and that this government could even consider specifically earmarking funds for the states. Again the Labor government's current arrangements show just how cosy the Labor government is with the union movement and how well it is looking after them with the proceeds of the funds allocated under this bill and the Skills Australia mandate. The Queensland government made a very good point, because if a Commonwealth government and a state government both allocate taxpayer dollars for the training effort—the qualifications task—the absolute No. 1 requirement that we as the custodians of those dollars should have is that the training task not be fragmented and that taxpayers get good value for money.

I have heard examples as I have travelled around and talked to state training authorities—and I pay tribute to them. While I recognise the need for a federal body of this type, state training authorities and training and skills organisations know what is going on in their own states, and they provide valuable information—and, of course, they provide it to the Commonwealth as well. But I have heard stories of these organisations saying, 'We turned around and saw that, under one of these Commonwealth federal programs, money had been allocated to something we knew nothing about and we, unaware that federal dollars were flowing also, might have been sending money in that direction.' On the ground, that does not work. It does not work for the employer or the training provider, it does not particularly work for the consumer who is going and doing the studying and it certainly does not work as value for money for taxpayers.

Much of the funding from the Workforce Development Fund that will be administered under the legislation is old funding in a new guise. There was, for example, the $200 million from the Critical Skills Investment Fund. The fund was short-lived, but the money has been folded into this fund. Of course, when a government has such abysmal economic credentials, it has to find money somewhere to make new announcements and grab that feel-good media opportunity. What could be better than rolling over a newly created fund and making it look like new money? This government does seem to hope that the electorate has limited memories of this sort of thing and does not realise that it is not all new. With the Workforce Development Fund, the government is attempting merely to reuse and recycle.

I certainly hope that this agency will help boost our national productivity and create real employment opportunities. Unemployment is tipped to increase to 5.5 per cent in the 2012-13 budget outlook. Regrettably, as with its misunderstanding of the needs of the vocational, education and training sector, the government has done the dodgy on employment services providers and the newly unemployed by slashing almost $200 million from Job Services Australia. The majority of this $200 million consists of savings from slashing assistance to the newly unemployed, or those classified in the jargon as stream 1. In August 2011, 24,718 stream 1 job seekers had been unemployed for 12 months or more. This figure will only worsen if Labor cuts the funding to those job seekers. Everybody recognises that, while the government may describe the unemployment figure as 'notionally lower than some others', the figures are quite resistant and it is quite difficult if you are unemployed to get a job. Therefore if you have been out of work and you are a stream 1 client of a job services provider you have already been out of work for at least 13 weeks, and so to pull back on the resources to get stream 1 clients back and engaged in the workforce quickly could well work out to be a disastrous mistake.

I am concerned that Labor are condemning Australians to languish on welfare unnecessarily. Their failure to support a system of early intervention is to the detriment of those who need assistance in finding a job. I also believe that this government's track record in overspending and under-delivering is a real concern. I am also concerned by the language and the announcements surrounding this particular bill.

We cannot let this government get away with talking up its own unemployment figures when we consider the disastrous figures for youth unemployment. There are areas in my electorate in western New South Wales where youth unemployment—that is, unemployment among 15- to 19-year-olds—is about 25 per cent. There are areas in the northern suburbs of Melbourne where youth unemployment is closer to 41 per cent. No government can ignore those figures, yet in the last budget we never saw youth unemployment announced, mentioned or tackled—not once. The rate is, I think, 40.8 per cent in Broadmeadows, and there are areas of Western Sydney where it is up towards 30 per cent. I will take this government seriously on its economic credentials on jobs when it takes seriously the shocking level of youth unemployment in this country.

To go back to the bill itself and make a few remarks, I did mention that Skills Australia is transitioning to the new agency. It has announced in its business plan how it will do that—it will include having consultations with stakeholders, developing operational procedures and setting up systems to support the administration of the fund. Let us just hope that there is not too much bureaucratic staffing to no particular end or too many announcements et cetera around that particular part of the transition to the new fund. It is only a matter of adding some members to the board, changing the name and changing some of the tasks.

The Parliamentary Secretary for Higher Education and Skills described the rationale for the proposed new agency in her speech to parliament. She said that it consisted of two points: industry and union partners had called for an increased focus on workplace productivity and better linkages between skills funding and industry needs, and Skills Australia had recommended a new partnership approach to workforce development involving government, industry and enterprises. They are fairly innocent statements. I wonder why the entire program had to be brought forward by nine months because of some urgent productivity agenda, which was not particularly well identified by the minister at the time.

When the Senate committee considered this bill they received nine submissions. Overall, some of those submissions were quite welcoming of the amendments, but I think we should drill down and look in a bit more detail at what those submissions and the committee's then considerations tell us about this bill. They noted that there was a shift in focus from training to workforce development. I think that is just a question of language, as is the change of name of the particular body and the expanded membership of the body. A nine-member board is quite large and could in some circumstances be considered unwieldy—but maybe not in this case. There is a new role in providing research and analysis and a new role in the provision of advice on Commonwealth funding.

I note that the Australian Chamber of Commerce as well as Industry and Restaurant Catering Australia argued in their submissions that the new requirement for employee representation should be matched by a requirement for employer representation. That is really quite important because the bill says that, in making up the new board of the Workforce and Productivity Agency, the membership has to have certain qualifications and characteristics. The members of the board must have between them experience in academia, the provision of educational training, economics, industry—and critically but not unsurprisingly—the representation of employees. The ACCI submission, while not particularly arguing with that, did wonder why this final requirement for the representation of employees was not matched with a similar requirement for the representation of employers.

The bill requires, I acknowledge, that there be industry representation. But industry representation is not defined. I think that unions would describe themselves as representative of industry, and, if we have those who represent employees on the board, we should also have those who represent employers. The recommendations from the Chamber of Commerce and Industry and from Restaurant and Catering Australia were that this proposed paragraph be changed from specifying the representation of industry to specifying the representation of employers so as to add clarity and resolve to an apparent inconsistency. I am not holding my breath that that will happen, so I simply ask the government that, when they move ahead, they bear that statement in mind and that, accordingly, the industry representation on the board be very much focused on the needs of and the environment facing employers, particularly today.

In its submission, the Australian Council for Private Education and Training called for a training sector representative in the membership of the agency. One of the things specified was that the board member was required to have experience in educational training, but that does not amount to specifying a training provider—someone who is at the cutting edge of providing training in the real world. I think that is a huge missing level of expertise that we are not demanding as a requirement of a member of the board of this new body. The proposed new agency will continue to have the same functions as Skills Australia in providing advice to the minister on Australia's current, emerging and future workforce development and workforce skills needs. The bill proposes two additional primary functions. These are: to provide advice to the minister on improving the productivity of the Australian workforce; and to provide advice to the minister on the allocation of Commonwealth funding, including through the National Workforce Development Fund, to address Australia's workforce development and skill needs and improve its productivity. So this board and this agency will have quite widespread powers if they are recommending how to allocate the funding in the National Workforce Development Fund.

The New South Wales Department of Education and Communities, in noting that, also noted the potential for duplication and overlap in this function, given that the Australian Productivity Commission also undertakes research on productivity. So if this body is required to advise the minister on productivity needs in the Australian economy, or how best to maximise those, why would it not make use of the Productivity Commission? Is there duplication? Is there overlap? I do hope not.

In advising on allocation of funding, which was the second task that I mentioned, the agency will provide 'advice on the allocation of Commonwealth … funding including the National Workforce Development Fund'. But the 2012 budget papers state that the agency will be responsible for administering the National Workforce Development Fund, which is a very direct role in allocating funding—much more direct than the wording of the bill suggests. It is worth noting that the government needs to correct that inconsistency. General advice on the allocation of Commonwealth funding, as this bill says, is incredibly broad and general, and we have to remember that there are other agencies and institutions that are well equipped to do this; we have to be careful about giving any particular agency powers that are too widespread. The submission from the New South Wales Department of Education and Communities points out that the use of the word 'including' leaves scope for the agency to provide advice on Commonwealth funding more broadly, and it is not limited to providing advice on this fund. That is an inconsistency that should be corrected.

There is a new, additional function, which is to 'assess research relating to improving the productivity of the Australian workforce'. The wording of this function again differs from what is in the budget papers because, while the budget papers stated that the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency would undertake research, the bill refers only to the assessment of research. So we need to be careful. We have increased the funding to this organisation, we have changed its name, we have widened its scope, we have increased the board membership and we have given it, it seems, quite widespread powers, and the empire is beginning to build. We need to be careful that we did not continue to allocate scarce government dollars and scarce government resources to functions that could well be performed by other agencies. In fact, I make the point that these functions should be being performed within the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.

To have the Skills Australia body, soon to change its name, sitting to one side—why are we not confident in our Public Service that we would not task some of the smart graduates that joined the Public Service with some of this research and some of this assessing of research and with coming up with some ideas? It would make for a public service that has good career pathways, is an interesting place to be, and attracts the best and brightest graduates. But if we take all of those sorts of tasks away from the rank and file public service and put them out in statutory bodies or authorities to one side, it is not giving a very good message about the quality of our Public Service. I have a great deal of faith in the quality of our Public Service, having been a member of it years and years ago, and I know we have some really smart people there.

I talked about the financial implications and the need to be very cautious about those costs increasing. In conclusion, I say that the bill seeks to formalise arrangements that have been in place since late 2011. The coalition does not seek to oppose this bill—from 1 July the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency will replace Skills Australia—but I say, on behalf of the coalition, that we will be watching very closely to see that this does not become yet another clumsy, inflexible organisation that is dishing out money to favourite people in favourite circumstances while ignoring sound, sensible advice from state and local agencies that really understand what the skilling and the workforce needs are of the people they represent in their varying and diverse parts of Australia. I thank the House.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before commencing my speech, Madam Deputy Speaker Rishworth, can I say it is an honour to be speaking in front of you in the chair. I do not think I have done that before.

I rise to voice my strong support, like the previous speaker, for the Skills Australia Amendment (Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency) Bill 2012. This is a bill that will improve long-term national workforce planning and development with the creation of the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency, and by doing so it will help address skills shortages across the country. As anyone who looks around the country knows, there are tough times in some patches of Australia. Some parts of Australia—particularly those focused on tourism, like North Queensland, and other parts—are doing it a bit tough, while obviously other parts are experiencing boom times, particularly those connected with the resources sector or servicing the resources sector.

This legislation is a plan of action that builds on the strengths of Skills Australia and ensures that government, industry associations, industry skills councils, unions—who have a proud role to play in this—and employers all work together to achieve the best outcome for industry. This bill recognises the vital significance of skilled workers in our country by taking action to give industry a stronger voice, and making sure our investment in training is going where it is needed most.

I now address a different Deputy Speaker, Mr Mitchell, whom I am appearing before for the first time as well. He looks a little bit different to the previous deputy speaker, but it is an honour, nevertheless, to be appearing before him.

I cannot overstate the importance of skilled workers. Despite the efforts of the rump of a few Work Choices warriors opposite, the reality is that Australia will never ever compete with Asia, Africa, South America and even some Eastern European nations when it comes to low wages. Skilled workers have built Australia and they are desperately needed as we take advantage of a booming resources sector. This has been a proud part of Australian culture. In fact, some might say that what makes Australians who we are is that, arguably since the Harvester case of 1907, we have always given priority to every worker receiving a decent wage. It is funny that when you travel around other parts of the world where productivity is nowhere near as high as ours, you see a lot of half jobs. When I was in the United States last year, I saw jobs we do not have in Australia, half jobs or even three-quarter jobs. That is why they have so many people who are employed yet living in poverty. I guess the United States never had its own Harvester case.

We know we need more workers for the new jobs expected to be created over the next five years. Modelling commissioned by Skills Australia shows that from now to 2015 Queensland will need an additional 156,000 people with qualifications at the trade level—that is, certificate III or IV. It also shows that Queensland will need an additional 104,000 people with diploma qualifications by 2015. Despite it being a tough time to draw up a balanced budget and deliver a surplus, the Gillard Labor government is facing this challenge head-on with strong investment in skilling workers for tomorrow's jobs. Over five years this government will commit $15.6 billion to drive training and skills development across Australia. Compare that to the last five years of the Howard government when only $9 billion was spent. When you compare those amounts you clearly see the difference in the commitment to workers by a Labor government and a coalition government.

The Gillard Labor government has offered Premier Newman more than $1.8 billion to help reform and improve the training system. We are also helping thousands of workers across the Sunshine State—the state that used to be known as the Smart State, but has now gone back to being the Sunshine State—to undertake further training to meet the skills required by industry through the National Workforce Development Fund. In addition to this, the MySkills website will be expanded, allowing people to get the information they need concerning training and employment opportunities. Like the MySchools website that has been accessed by millions and millions and millions of Australians, and the MyHealth website that is starting to be accepted as a way to access and assess information given to government, we will have the MySkills website. We are also giving $18.3 million to establish three Australian skills centres of excellence.

This government is doing what is necessary to break down the barriers so all Australians can obtain the qualifications they need to create a better future for themselves. Obviously the Labor Party is proud of this. We are the party of opportunity. That is why we value education for all, not education just for the privileged. We believe in education for all.

I need not look any further than my own electorate to see the benefits of a strong vocational education and training system. I am proud to say that located in Moreton are the Salisbury and Acacia Ridge campuses of SkillsTech Australia. I was recently at SkillsTech Australia in Acacia Ridge with Minister Evans. This is Queensland's largest TAFE institute dedicated to trade and technician training in automotive, building and construction, manufacturing and engineering, electrotechnology and sustainable technologies. The automotive workshop is fantastic. They even let me drive a big truck, even though it was on rollers so it did not leave the workshop. They have also done some incredible things in powering the workshops and training facilities through lots of solar panels on the roof.

The institute offers more than 120 training programs for people of all ages including traineeships and apprenticeships, school based programs, pre- and postapprenticeship programs, diplomas, advanced diplomas and licensing programs. Delivery models include face-to-face teaching, workplace based learning, videoconferencing and e-learning—all the new ways in which we engage with people and educate them. SkillsTech Australia provides six training centres, with the largest at Morton and Acacia Ridge, now training more than 10,000 students annually. In 2010-11, SkillsTech Australia recorded 170,058 enrolments across all programs, including 377 onshore international students and more than 1,000 offshore in Papua New Guinea.

SkillsTech Australia achieves consistently high completion rates. In 2010-11, the overall completion rate across all training modules was 95.82 per cent with 165,739 completions recorded, a completion rate to be proud of. Earlier this month, SkillsTech Australia was named the 2012 registered training organisation of the year at the Manufacturing Skills Queensland awards. SkillsTech Australia also took home the manufacturing vocational education and training teacher of the year and manufacturing Indigenous student of the year awards. On top of this direct recognition, the Aluminium Boats Australia director was awarded the industry champion award on the night and SkillsTech Australia delivers all training for ABA in their workplace.

The high-skills approach to training people is coming out of two sites in my electorate, and I have another great vocational education facility in my electorate, the Yeronga campus of the Metropolitan South Institute of TAFE. Recently the Metropolitan South Institute of TAFE announced that it would be the first TAFE provider in Queensland to deliver bachelor degrees. This demonstrates Metropolitan South's continued determination to offer innovative training solutions for Queensland students in Moreton. Yeronga TAFE has had a few hiccups because of the emissions from its smokestacks, but it still has a bright future.

Skilled workers are good for Australia and gaining skills is also good for Australians. Having the chance to develop skills makes it easier to find work at any stage of life. The more skills people have, the more likely they are to be employed and work in higher-paying jobs. On average, wages for those without a certificate III qualification are at least around $180 per week lower than those for workers with a certificate III or above qualification. Some workers are missing out on nearly $10,000 in extra wages a year. So these Australians could be earning an extra $400,000, on average, over their working lives if they improved their skills to a certificate III qualification or higher.

Australia is taking steps to give many Australians a better job, a better pay packet and better job security—and job security is emerging as a particular concern. Nevertheless, Australia will need more skilled health and community workers, engineers, IT specialists and construction workers. I am hoping that many of them will be trained at facilities in my electorate. It is imperative that we have the training in place now to deliver these workers in the future. This bill follows calls from industry and union partners for an increased focus on workplace productivity and improved links between skills funding and industry needs. That is what this bill is aimed at doing, and thus I commend it to the House.

Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Skills Australia Amendment (Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency) Bill 2012. The coalition will support this bill and I understand that the general premise of the bill is supported very broadly across the training and skills sector. However, this piece of legislation is not perfect, and I would like to take this opportunity to discuss some of the problems with that is particular bill.

Firstly, I note that this bill will create the new Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency, which will replace and take over the previous work of an organisation set up by the Rudd government in 2008, Skills Australia. Based on the fact that they are replacing Skills Australia so soon after its implementation, clearly there were issues from the outset with that organisation and they have been recognised by the Gillard government. However, this government is notorious for coming up with short-term, bandaid solutions that do not address the substance of issues affecting this country. If this legislation is passed, the government will be successful in 'vanishing' the name Skills Australia, but not in dealing with the problems and inefficiencies that surrounded that organisation.

The agency was budgeted for $25 million in the 2011-12 budget, which will enable them to oversee the administration of the $558 million Workforce Development Fund. This is to pay for up to half of training costs in the form of a co-contribution for the upskilling of existing workers. The other half is to be paid for by businesses themselves. In order to facilitate this process, enterprises will identify areas where there are specific workplace redevelopment needs and apply for funding to train new workers and retrain existing workers. The role of the new agency is to identify areas of importance and, as such, areas worthy of funding under a competitive application process.

The current round of funding, which will be worth $50 million dollars, involves three key priorities: (1) $15 million for the resources sector and other areas where the effects of the current resources boom are impacting training and skilling; (2) $15 million in support for regions where there are significant structural reform challenges, with two priorities being the manufacturing and tourism sectors; and (3) an additional $20 million for upskilling and skills augmentation across the general economy where the agency sees fit.

Anyone who has been studying the Australian economy over the last decade knows that there have been significant issues in training and the procurement of skilled Australian workers, such that companies have often looked to bring overseas workers into the country on temporary business 457 visas. This is particularly true for the mining and resources sector. Many constituents in Ryan have raised with me their concerns that it is unfair to Australian workers, that this sector—which does employ so many Australians—with the ongoing resources boom, is not investing enough in upskilling Australian workers first. I understand their concerns and the concerns of many thousands of workers across Australia.

I appreciate that by bringing in workers on 457 visas we are adding to the skill base of Australians. These foreign workers are bringing in their skills and, indeed, are adding quite significantly to the future of the Australian economy. However, they are only doing so in a bandaid capacity, and many will depart this country, never to return. I lament this situation because things could have been done better, both by the Australian government and by the mining industry.

The $30 million dollars provided could go a long way in ensuring that funds are directed to those areas where a monetary incentive is required to encourage a business to invest. There is expected to be a training shortfall of more than 250,000 skilled employees during the next five years, so it will be a very large challenge for the board and the agency to match skills expansion with work opportunities appropriately. For example, just under 130,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost since mid-2008, and many workers will require retraining. This will be a huge task for industry and the agency.

However, there are two elements of this bill that make me worry about the board's representation and consequent effectiveness. Firstly, in addition to the $558 million funding figure, there is also $20 million which can be allocated to unions and employer groups. Again, this current, union-controlled, Labor government cannot devise legislation without including a significant carrot to its union mates.

The agency also sees an expansion in the number of people on its board from seven members to 10 members, but still does not ensure appropriate representation on that board. I ask the government: why have they still not created a specific position for a representative of training organisations? These groups will no doubt be working very closely with the agency's board—yet, according to this Labor government, those people out on the ground actually doing the training do not merit representation.

In their submission to the Senate committee, the Australian Council for Private Education and Training queried the government and noted that they would be:

… pleased to work with Government to nominate a representative that has an in-depth knowledge and understanding of the training sector.

Given that ACPET is an organisation with over 1,100 members—a national organisation delivering many programs in vocational and educational training—I look forward to the government working with ACPET to resolve their concerns.

Another very significant issue this legislation creates is the continued overlap of bureaucracy and funding levels among multiple and varied training organisations and skills councils at the state level. The coalition is very concerned that this government, rather than providing workable solutions to the skills shortage, is simply directing funds to initiatives which have seen poor results to date, and, at the same time, redirecting funds from one training initiative to another. At one point, this Labor government redirected funds from the Critical Skills Investment Fund to the Workforce Development Fund, after which Senator Evans announced the amalgamation of the funds in 2011. Ultimately, this government pretends that there are large increases in funding in the aggregate, when really all they have delivered is a redirection of the funds.

It is quite confusing for the industry. For this fund, there is $558 million in funding, $101 million for a national apprentice mentoring program and a further $223 million for other support programs and wage-subsidy policies. There are other federal government programs, like funding for 30,000 new places in the Language, Literacy and Numeracy Program. This not only creates many layers of bureaucracy to deal with; it also confuses those in the industry, who have to work out where to apply—and what to apply for—at the myriad government agencies and offices. As the Queensland government noted in its submission to the Senate committee, states and territories are the predominant drivers in skills and training investment. This is particularly through the technical and further education departments, a segment of the vocational, education and tertiary sector and which are run primarily by each state government. The Queensland government noted that there is evidence that the duplication of skills training funding is 'fragmenting skills investment' and such duplication results in 'misalignment of training with local skill needs and industry requirements'. While there is scope for a national agency to have a more economy-wide perspective on what skills may be required as the economy evolves, there is a concern that this agency will be too far removed from the coalface to provide an accurate assessment of the workforce needs. Practically speaking, we must ensure that the agency will be producing value for money with their investments in skills training. It is certainly true that states in Australia have a much greater capability to cooperate with their local communities to ensure that skills requirements are being met. I hope at the very least that this agency will collaborate with state skills councils to gain access to the most accurate, on-the-ground knowledge.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the two taxes proposed by this Labor government which go a long way to discounting any possible benefits of the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency. Every member of this House knows what I am talking about—the Labor government's minerals resource rent tax and the carbon tax. The first priority of the Workforce and Productivity Agency will be workers in the mining industry. I mentioned that the mining and resources sector has had difficulty in up-skilling enough Australian workers for their industry due to the significant cost of retraining. Taxing the so-called super profits of the mining industry and imposing a devastating carbon tax serves as a double whammy to that industry—thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of investment in mines and related businesses are at risk. They combine to serve as massive disincentives to international investment in the industry in the first place, lowering the general demand in the employment market of Australian workers. And if that is not bad enough, taxing their profits means mining companies effectively have less available funds to retrain employees and other Australians. This is yet another negative unintended consequence of the mining and carbon taxes, a consequence this government still does not understand.

The second priority of the $50 million funding round is for industries with significant structural reform challenges, with the two priorities being manufacturing and tourism sectors. The two main industries that will be affected by the Gillard government's disastrous carbon tax will be those exact industries—manufacturing and tourism. I echo the words of the American President's top manufacturing adviser and Chief Executive Officer of Dow Chemical Company, Mr Andrew Liveris, who said in March:

Carbon pricing in isolation puts the country on its own rising prices on energy-intensive industries such that it creates a disincentive for investment.

Mr Liveris knows that the carbon tax will damage an energy-intensive industry like manufacturing and puts this industry on the back foot in terms of international competitiveness. The $30 million for the mining, manufacturing and tourism industries is merely a bandaid attempt to cover up the hardship that they will have to face in the future. If the government truly supports these industries, they will rescind the mining and carbon taxes. The coalition has made that promise to the Australian people, and the Prime Minister and her government must do the same.

To conclude, there are clear issues with this bill, issues which this government has pretended to fix by merely rebranding Skills Australia. The $558 million available is significant funding for the upskilling and retraining of Australian workers, but the creation of a new Workforce and Productivity Agency creates a new layer of bureaucracy for businesses and skills training organisations. I agree very broadly with supporting Australian workers, but, again and again, this Labor government devises legislation that could and should be better.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to rise today in support of the Skills Australia Amendment (Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency) Bill 2012 to establish the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency to improve national, long-term workforce planning and development to address the skills and labour shortages, and contribute to improved labour market participation and industry and workplace productivity.

I find it odd hearing the opposition's issues with this bill, one being that, heaven forbid, employees should have a seat at the table. It is important that the vast majority of employees out there who require upskilling and who will benefit from this training should not have a seat at the table. That is the criticism from the opposition. I find it an odd situation but I will leave the opposition to nitpick on the sidelines, while this government gets on with the job of pursuing a skills agenda.

I am very proud of what this government has done with our skills agenda, because skills are critical to our future prosperity. Skills are central to ensuring that we have the workforce needed to deliver innovative, high quality services and products that will power our economy in the Asian century. In a changing economy, skills also build resilience. We heard the member for Farrer talking earlier about the Work for the Dole program and other schemes of the previous Howard government, but I have to say that our government has been focused on many different avenues to ensure that people get skills. We do not see a one-size-fits-all solution such as Work for the Dole. We want to see a variety of solutions, a variety of opportunities, to provide skills for many, many people.

Skills do provide and build resilience so that workers do have the flexibility to change jobs, to apply skills in different contexts and continue to learn. For individuals, higher skills means more opportunity. I heard the member for Farrer scoffing at people getting skills, but higher skills do mean more opportunity, more choice and higher wages, leading to a better life for those people and their families. To businesses, a skilled nation means that they can get workers with the right skills to ensure that their business remains competitive and that they can take advantage of new opportunities. Indeed, 1.4 working Australians do not have the necessary skills for entry into the key growth sectors of our economy. The ABS estimates that these workers earn up to $10,000 less than their skilled peers.

Skills Australia estimates that in the five years up to 2015 Australia will need an additional 2.1 million people in the workforce with VET qualifications. In my state of South Australia alone the ABS data estimates that 300,000 people are missing out on the opportunities that come with higher skills. It also shows that South Australia will need an additional 30,000 people with diploma qualifications by 2015.

It is incredibly important that this government respond to the need for skills in our economy. Certainly it has done this. The key areas of growth are going to be in the technical and service areas. Information released by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations has pointed to a variety of occupations that are needed specifically for South Australia. These include various types of managers, professionals and technicians across construction, engineering, automotive, food trades, mining, electrotechnology, telecommunications trades, skilled animal and horticultural workers and health professionals. The department points out that there have been various shortages and difficulties in recruiting to these professions.

Since the day this Labor government was elected we have been committed to skilling up Australia—and not just in giving it a bit of window dressing, like the previous government did, when lot of the traineeships were used to subsidise wages rather than to ensure that Australians had the skills that would give them better opportunities. The previous government masked and window dressed, but we do not want to do that. We want to ensure that individuals are able to create a better life for themselves—a better job, a better pay packet and better job security.

The government's most recent package, Skills for all Australians, will further turbocharge training in this country. It aims for an additional 375,000 students to complete qualifications over the next five years. To achieve this we need to ensure that vocational education is accessible to more Australians. That is why I am very proud to be part of the government that has committed $1.75 billion over five years for new skills reforms through the national partnerships agreement with the states. This is in addition to the money that has already been committed by the Commonwealth and delivered to the states.

I am very proud that this package will give all Australians access to a government-subsidised training place at least to certificate III level. Prerequisite courses will also be covered, including the training to provide help with literacy and numeracy, so ensuring those who have been previously cut out of education and upskilling can get access.

This package will mean that there will be more providers and more places offering subsidised opportunities to skill up more Australians. The package will be critical in opening the doors to many who have not had these opportunities before. The national training entitlement will be available to Australians from post school to the point where people enter into the aged pension, ensuring that no Australian is left behind when it comes to the opportunity to learn skills. For the first time, working-age Australians will be guaranteed access to a government-subsidised training place

Ensuring that upfront fees are not a barrier to entering training is also critical to equitable access. As I mentioned previously, South Australia is in desperate need of people with diploma-level qualifications. Therefore I was incredibly pleased—and this is something I have been talking about since I attended university—that a deferred loan scheme will now be available not only to university students but also to VET students who are studying diploma and advanced diploma courses. As with university fees, VET students will not be required to pay income-contingent loans upfront; they will be able to defer until they are earning a decent income. This was, unfortunately, missed when it was announced after the last COAG meeting, but it is a serious reform that will once again open the doors to many young people in my electorate.

But it is not just young people in my electorate who will benefit from this; I meet many older people who have decided to change what career they pursue. They do want to upskill but have not had the money. I have heard from many people who have said: 'If only I could defer this payment and if only I could get access. When I get a job I will be able to pay it back'. Now, this government is delivering the opportunity for these people to skill up.

The skills reform National Partnership Agreement with the states comes, as I said, in addition to the $7.2 billion that this government has made available to the states and territories over the next five years for the VET system. In total, therefore, the federal government will be injecting close to $9 billion dollars over the next five years to improve the training opportunities and so allow Australians to get the skills they need.

It is vital not only that training is easier for people from all walks of life to access and afford but also that the quality of the training provided is of high quality. I think this is a very important point. We need to make sure that the skills training that is being delivered is delivered in a high-quality way. That is why the government is working very closely with industry and employers to develop training solutions that get real results for Australians.

Employers must be able to trust that they will be hiring trained graduates with the skills that meet the highest industry standards and requirements. The government has already established the Australian Skills Quality Authority to promote high standards for our VET providers. As part of the new national partnership agreement reforms announced at the recent COAG, the government has pushed for further improvement in quality and will require all states and territories to implement independent assessments over the next two years. Strict criteria will be set to ensure that only quality providers with an established record can access public funding, and the states will be required to implement strategies to improve the quality of vocational education and teaching. The federal government also plans to implement the My Skills website, which will also improve access to information and support informed choice. All these reforms are critical to the quality of education provided.

I have seen in my own electorate some of the investments into skills that are really making a difference. One of the real concerns in my electorate under the previous government was that so few young people could access skills at school. We know that the previous government brought in their Australian technical colleges. There were 25 around the country, but they were not really easily accessible by the thousands of students who want to attain a VET qualification or a vocational education while at high school. So I was very proud to stand at the 2007 election and say that we were not going to make vocational training an exclusive right for only a few people in this country; we were going to roll out trades training centres to schools where the students were and where they could take an alternative path. I am so pleased now to see those rolling out in my electorate. We currently have six in operation, and a number of others have been announced.

Willunga High School, Reynella East High School, Southern Vales Christian College's Aldinga campus, Wirreanda High School, Seaford 6-12 School and Hallett Cove R-12 School all have training centres, and all are cooperating together as part of the Southern Adelaide and Fleurieu Trade School. They are exchanging students and specialising in trades and really networking up. I think it is a great model that gives students from my local electorate an opportunity while at school. The academic side of school with your normal subjects may not be the path they want to go down. I have seen some wonderful, engaged students who have chosen to finish year 12 but have done it while also doing vocational education. I was pleased to recently open the Hallett Cove trades training centre. This is a really exciting initiative that now provides an opportunity to gain qualifications in plumbing and electrotechnology. It is working with industry to deliver its program, so it is a great example of industry, school education and federal government assistance that is really delivering, once again, some great opportunities for young Australians in my electorate.

The amendment bill in the House today seeks to replace Skills Australia from 1 July 2012 with the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency and improve long-term workforce planning and development to further address skill and labour shortages and contribute to improvements in industry and workplace productivity. I think it is important to note while you are listening to the opposition speakers—they did not quite make this clear—that the move does have the backing of industry and employee representatives, who have been urging an integrated approach to tackling the skills shortage and productivity challenges. The agency will have broader scope than Skills Australia through the bill, enabling it to provide government with advice on allocation of Commonwealth funding. Further, the functions of the agency will be broadened to providing government with advice on improving productivity. It will assess research on improving productivity and analyse funding available to address workforce skills, workforce development and workforce productivity.

In conclusion I say that I think this is an important bill. It is part of a massive package that this government is delivering in skills. In moving around my electorate, I found it clear that the previous government fell asleep at the wheel when it came to skills, and it has taken the election of this government to really turbocharge skilling up Australia. I think there are so many exciting opportunities, including the deferral of loans in a HECS-style system for people studying for diplomas and advanced diplomas. This is a critical reform, as are our many others. I commend the bill to the House.

Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Skills Australia Amendment (Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency) Bill 2012, which is set to replace Skills Australia with the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency. Skills Australia currently provides the government with advice on Australia's workforce shortages and demands. The new Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency will assume most of the work being done by Skills Australia but will have an expanded mandate. This expanded mandate will mean that the new organisation will be responsible for the administration of the National Workforce Development Fund as well as provide the relevant minister with advice on how to improve productivity in the Australian workforce and where to allocate Commonwealth funding. The new organisation will also have access to a $20 million pool of funds that can be distributed to unions and employer groups, but at this stage the accountability regarding the distribution of these funds is unclear.

Although the primary task of both Skills Australia and its new successor is to provide evidence as to where shortfalls exist, these shortfalls are already being identified by industry and the department, as well as a variety of other stakeholders, so there appears to be some duplication in responsibility for the work undertaken by the agency and the department. What is further concerning is that Skills Australia and various industry skills councils should have been in a position to make determinations as to current and future skills needs but, because the AWPA has now been granted responsibility for this task, these changes only indicate that these organisations were not given the opportunity to do so.

This bill before the House increases the ever-expanding bureaucracy that the Labor government is creating. The bill also increases the number of board members that will sit on the AWPA to 10, including the chair—three up from the seven currently prescribed for Skills Australia. Whilst unions, employers and skills councils are represented on the board, there is minimal direct training expertise. I would see it as critical that there be a board member or members with significant direct training experience. Training is vital to the success of the next generation of Australia's workforce as well as to our current generations. Although representation by industry groups and union organisations provides an insight into the current demands of businesses as well as the interests of employees, it does not provide government with information on how we go about providing workers with the vital skills needed to get the work done and the processes and the measures that can be utilised to do so.

Considering the central role that training plays in developing and maintaining workforce productivity, I am surprised that there is no direct training representation on the board. This view is also supported by the Australian Council for Private Education and Training, which said in its submission to the Senate inquiry into the bill:

ACPET believes that it is appropriate that the training sector also be represented as part of the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency membership. … Such an appointment would add valuable expertise to the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency as it develops advice for the government.

Nonetheless, the government has not seen fit to make such an appointment to date. However, I do hope that this will be rectified as a priority. There is also a possibility that the functions of the new organisation may in fact overlap with others. The New South Wales Department of Education and Communities, in its submission to the inquiry, said:

There may be value in avoiding the potential for duplication and overlap between the work of the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency and other bodies that include the Productivity Commission. The Productivity Commission is required by legislation to undertake on its own initiative research about matters relating to industry, industry development and productivity. Thus productivity achieved through workforce development could be seen to be part of the Productivity Commission's role.

Further, the Queensland Department of Education and Training, in its submission, states:

Having significant training delivery administered nationally risks duplication of training effort on the ground and potential misalignment of training with skills needs and industry requirements. Put simply, there is already evidence that the purchasing of training by states and state industry bodies, the Commonwealth and Commonwealth industry bodies is fragmenting skills investment.

There are two concerns here. Firstly, duplicating the work done by specifically designed organisations such as the Productivity Commission can only lead to poor productivity, wasted time and potentially much less action. Secondly, if there is already fragmentation of skills investment why doesn't the government address this issue rather than pressing forward with what amounts to merely window dressing?

The importance of training in the workforce cannot be expressed enough. Providing our workforce with the tools of the trade has a twofold benefit. The first is personal growth and higher skill training and the second is increasing productivity in the workplace. Training provides individual workers with the ability to supplement their skills and to grow professionally. It gives them the ability to complete their work in a more productive fashion as well as increasing their employability. Further, productivity is a major benefit that arises from training the workforce and it ultimately benefits business and the community as a whole. It is clearly essential that measures are taken to increase productivity across this country. By increasing the ease of access to training and the opportunities for training our workforce we can consequentially assist in increasing productivity in industry and therefore increase our wealth as a nation.

The VET sector, which contributes heavily to the training of our workforce, is a vital part of our national economy. I have spoken many times in this place about its importance to Australia and noted the significant contribution many institutions make in their local communities. On the Gold Coast alone there are over 160 registered training organisations providing training in a variety of forms—from hospitality courses to apprenticeships in construction related fields. These training organisations are vital to ensuring the health of the VET dependent industries which the Gold Coast has traditionally relied on. They include tourism, construction, manufacturing and, more recently, mining and resources.

The number of students in the Gold Coast VET sector rose by over 4,000 between 2006 and 2010, and that clearly demonstrates the health of this industry on the Gold Coast. However, we do need to make sure that the training that is being provided and that is being undertaken now is relevant to industry's future needs. There is no point in students undertaking training if there are likely to be limited or no job opportunities for them in their discipline in the future. So we have to be quite structured and quite focused about the training that we are developing and offering now to our students so that at the end of their training they do have a reasonable prospect of gaining employment in their chosen area.

Unemployment is an issue on the Gold Coast. Unemployment statistics for March 2012 show that the Gold Coast as a whole had a 6.7 per cent unemployment rate compared to 2.9 per cent in March 2008. The southern Gold Coast, where my electorate of McPherson is located, had a 6.7 per cent unemployment rate compared to its March 2008 rate of 2.8 per cent. Based on these numbers, unemployment on the Gold Coast under the Labor government has risen by 3.9 per cent, or 12,600 people.

But it is not only unemployment that needs to be addressed. We also need to address the issue of underemployment in Australia. In February 2011, out of the 11.4 million people employed 916,400 were identified as being underemployed, which is a representation of about eight per cent. There are many workers who are available to work additional hours. They may be additional part-time hours, casual hours or overtime hours. They would be accessing those hours but, at this point in time, there are no opportunities for them to pick up those additional hours and access that work. There are also women who would be employed on a part-time, casual or a full-time basis if there were opportunities available for them. But it also seems to be somewhat limited. That is a statistic that is not necessarily borne out by a lot of the ABS unemployment data at the moment because it represents the underemployment figure.

Many of Gold Coast locals are indicating to me that they believe that the underemployment rate could be as high as twice the unemployment rate I mentioned before. To address this issue we really need to strengthen the local economy on the southern Gold Coast and to provide businesses with incentives and opportunities to grow so that they in turn provide more opportunities for their existing employees and for potential employees.

Identifying these workforce shortages and areas in which productivity can be raised will help to ensure the strength of many industries and the national economy. But the risk of duplicating the functions of current agencies present some reasons for concern. Duplicating efforts will only lead to waste and they will not see any real results. Real action needs to be taken to reduce workforce skill shortages; real action needs to be taken in training not only today's workforce but also the workforce of tomorrow.

Geoff Lyons (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Skills Australia Amendment (Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency) Bill 2012. In the 2011 budget, the Australian government announced the creation of an industry-led workforce and productivity agency as part of its Building Australia's Future Workforce initiatives. This package is about providing greater opportunities for Australians to develop their skills, train and get into the workforce. It rewards work through improved tax incentives and provides new opportunities to get people into work with education, improved childcare and employment services. The Building Australia's Future Workforce initiatives also introduce new requirements for the long-term unemployed, disability support pensioners, young parents, jobless families and young people.

A key focus of the package is to improve education and skill levels across the labour market to ensure Australians are equipped with the skills required to thrive in an innovative and sustainable economy. These initiatives invest over $3 billion in a new approach towards delivering the skilled workers the economy needs and ensuring that more Australian have the opportunity to share in our nation's prosperity.

The Skills Australia Amendment (Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency) Bill 2012 implements a critical aspect of these reforms, establishing the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency, which will replace Skills Australia from 1 July this year. The new agency will work closely with industry to ensure the National Workforce Development Fund delivers training outcomes that meet the needs of industry, workers and the economy. The AWPA will work to place industry at the centre of the national training system, giving them a strong voice in the development of policy and industry skills funding. The agency will be an authority on workforce development policy. The agency will have a central role in advising the Australian government on the allocation of funding for the new National Workforce Development Fund, which will contribute some $558 million to the upskilling of Australia's workforce and will create some 130,000 industry focused training places.

The Skills Australia Amendment (Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency) Bill 2012 will make several important changes to the Skills Australia Act 2008. These include: changing the name of the existing Skills Australia body to the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency; broadening the object of the act to include the provision of advice on the allocation of Commonwealth industry skills and workforce development funding; broadening the functions of the body to allow for a stronger research, analysis and advisory role, and to specifically address improvements in Australian workforce productivity; expanding the size of the body from a total of seven to 10 members, including an independent chair; and expanding on the current membership criteria to reflect the transition to a union and industry-led body.

The main aims of the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency will be to ensure that skills and labour shortages are addressed, to improve long-term workforce planning and contribute to improved industry and workplace productivity. The establishment of the AWPA is a demonstration of the Gillard Labor government's continued commitment to its workforce. We are determined to increase the number of skilled Australians in the workforce and create a more responsive training system that produces workers who have the skills to meet the challenges of a changing economy.

Thanks to the responsible fiscal management of the Labor government, Australia emerged from the uncertainty of the global financial crisis and the recent natural disasters with one of the world's strongest economies. The government's stimulus package helped support growth and protect jobs and businesses. Of course, Australia's economy is undergoing something of a transformation. Structural changes in the economy mean that we must act now to train the workers who will take on the jobs of the future, and this is exactly what the AWPA will do.

Jobs for more highly skilled workers are growing at 2.5 times the rate of other jobs. Indeed, 83 per cent of all Australians with a certificate III qualification or higher have a job as compared to only 57 per cent of those who left school early. This demand for skills cannot be met by the current workforce. The Skills Australia Amendment (Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency) Bill 2012 takes a big step in addressing this problem by ensuring that there is an organisation in place whose role is to meet the training needs of both workers and industry. Within this role, the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency will have several important tasks. The agency will not only advise the government on expenditure priorities for the National Workforce Development Fund but also drive engagement between industry, training providers and government on workforce development, apprenticeships and VET reform. They will act to promote workforce productivity by leading initiatives for the improvement of productivity, management innovation and skills utilisation within Australian workplaces. The AWPA will conduct skills and workforce research, including into the future of work and working life in Australia. This will be achieved through collaboration with industry associations, industry skills councils, unions and employers and will see a practical approach to training that will meet the needs of sectors, regions and small businesses in our changing economy. There is absolutely no doubt of the value of a skilled workforce to a transforming economy like Australia's. An educated, productive workforce is an essential part of the government's plan to meet the challenges of the future.

Skills also make a huge difference on an individual scale. They provide the opportunity for a new start, a better job and a higher pay packet at the end of the week. Labor believes every Australian should be supported to reach their potential through education and training. The fact is that 4.1 million workers do not have a postschool qualification. The establishment of the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency will increase the opportunities available to them to gain the higher skills they need to ensure they do not miss out on the higher skilled, higher paying jobs of the future.

The Gillard Labor government recognises the difference that education and training make not only to the economy but to individuals and their families. Between the 2008 and 2010 financial years we have invested more than $11.1 billion in skills funding, significantly more than the $7.2 billion invested in the last three years of the Howard government. This investment in skills funding works side-by-side with the government's high reform agenda, which has seen an additional 150,000 students enrolled in universities throughout Australia.

There has also been an increase in the number of apprenticeships, with a 14 per cent rise in the numbers in the 3½ years to June 2011. In total, that is 462,000 trainees and apprentices in training—almost 60,000 additional people getting a trade for the future and the highest figure ever recorded.

Labor has also committed $2.5 billion dollars over 10 years for Trade Training Centres in Schools to boost year 12 attainment and address skills shortages. Indeed, I have seen the benefits of these firsthand in my electorate of Bass, with trade training centres up and running in both George Town and Scottsdale and a third on the way at St Patricks College in Launceston. I am thrilled that students in Bass will benefit from the next instalment of $986,500 in the Australian government's $2.5 billion program to help schools build and upgrade trade training facilities. The investment in the trades training centres is giving students in Northern Tasmania and all over Australia more choice to find a career that suits them and also ensuring local businesses can access a workforce with the latest skills. These figures prove that the government is working to meet the challenges of the 21st century by building an educated and skilled workforce and ensuring that there are opportunities for all Australians to experience the benefits of work.

It was fantastic to hear in the budget that the federal government is helping 260 workers across Tasmania undertake further training to meet the skills of industry. Labor is negotiating with the Tasmanian government to provide HECS-style loans for local students studying for a diploma or advanced diploma, allowing TAFE students to study now and pay later. Federal Labor is also negotiating with the Tasmanian government to provide a subsidised training place for local people wanting to gain new skills up to certificate III, which will also roll out from July.

The strong economic position of the Australian economy provides the opportunity for more individuals to participate in the workforce. These opportunities ensure that the benefits of work can be enjoyed and shared by all. The establishment of the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency through the Skills Australia Amendment (Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency) Bill 2012 is an essential element in the government's plan to create a highly skilled workforce that is ready to take on the jobs of our future economy. I am confident that the AWPA will be a driving force in the development of policy and industry skills funding, as well as providing training outcomes that meet the needs of industry, workers and the economy.

This bill makes a number of changes that will ensure the agency can fulfil its role in improving long-term workforce planning and development to address labour shortages and to deliver practical, industry-led workforce strategies. I look forward to seeing the positive outcomes and benefits that the training and upskilling provided by the AWPA will create for Australian workers and their families. In a time of a transforming economy the Labor government is providing for the future of all Australians by providing access to the training and education they will need in a highly skilled future. I commend this bill to the House.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too wish to talk about the Skills Australia Amendment (Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency) Bill 2012. It was announced in the 2011-12 budget just the other night that the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency will be a new agency subsuming and replacing the existing work undertaken by Skills Australia. Skills Australia was set up by the Rudd Labor government in 2008. So just four years later we have to wonder why it has found itself under the spotlight, being substantially changed in terms of its mandate. I guess it is because we did not have much action and there was not much to show for those first four years.

There is a substantial injection of funds into this new agency—$25 million was budgeted for the 2011-12 financial year. What we have to hope is that this new agency is not simply another training for training's sake exercise. Too often in Australia we have seen the unemployed, especially the Indigenous unemployed or others with a disability perhaps, put in front of course after course with no prospect of a job ever at the end of the training period.

Too often we are told that there are massive skills in demand in Australia and that there are thousands of jobs not being filled. In rural and regional Australia in particular, we have a crisis in farm succession and in finding enough agribusiness workers. We are told that there are more than 2.5 jobs for every graduate from a college which trains individuals in agricultural science or agribusiness related courses, yet the industry cannot find those 2.5 graduates for every job. So there is a real problem in Australia in that there are not enough trained individuals to meet the real opportunities in our economy; and, indeed, there are not enough individuals who are given a chance to retrain, given that they are locked into parts of Australia where there are few jobs or they are locked into areas of work which will not have much of a future after the carbon tax commences on 1 July. I have already seen in my electorate, for example, hundreds of food manufacturing jobs disappear. Individuals have been made redundant because of the additional costs to be imposed in the food manufacturing sector come 1 July. I am referring in particular to the most recent job losses from the Murray Goulburn Co-operative. Recently Coca-Cola Amatil announced job losses, and the workers at Heinz at Girgarre were told to go elsewhere when the company decided to shift offshore to New Zealand—which, of course, has only a tiny carbon tax compared to that which is to be imposed in Australia. There will be a lot of new job losses coming through the system when our economy is made less competitive after 1 July, so we are very much anticipating that an enormous training effort will be required in this country—perhaps one of the biggest new training efforts that the country has ever seen.

We know that there are a lot of disengaged youth, particularly in rural and regional Australia. In my area, up to 30 per cent of our young people are not employed. I wonder, though, how simply increasing the size of the board of Skills Australia from seven to 10 members is going to make a huge difference. There is a new emphasis on these members coming out of the trade union movement. The trade union movement has done a lot of things in the past, but one of the things it is not renowned for is retraining. We have a requirement for 250,000 skilled employees over the next five years, yet we know that the membership of the union movement is contracting across all sectors. So it is interesting that the Skills Australia board is to be boosted by more membership from the trade union movement, and it is interesting that a substantial part of the funding is to be allocated to the unions themselves.

I want to see the funding go to agencies or organisations such as those that Andrew Forrest has identified in Western Australia. He understands that unless there is the prospect of a job at the end of the training experience, the individual is not going to be quite so well engaged. The individual who perhaps has never worked before, or who has faced a lot of discrimination because of race or because of poor Australian standard English-speaking skills, is best engaged when he of she knows that there is a real job at the end of a training period—a job they want to do and a job that is accessible to them geographically.

When I was Minister for Workforce Participation, I was very proud to launch Goal 100. This was in Whyalla and it was very much the brainchild of OneSteel. They had a massive problem with local skills retention and in finding new skilled workers for their expanding mining tasks in that region. There were 79 graduates who received five months of training. This program was one of the first of its kind in Australia. It took some quite long-term unemployed men and women—some Indigenous men and women among the group—and gave them real work-related skills so they could enter various mining sector jobs in the region. It also gave them a great deal of personal development support. Some of these individuals had very difficult lives where they had to, for example, spend a lot of time caring for sick family members or had experienced family dislocation. Some had experienced alcohol and drug issues in the past. One of the conditions of the training was that the graduates be drug-free during their training period, and this was very successfully achieved by the 79 who graduated after five months of training. Those graduates knew that they were not going to march around to the Centrelink to see what was possible for them to apply for; they knew that they had an excellent job waiting for them. In fact, most of them had already had some experience in the jobs which they were to step into, having graduated from the training program. The night of their graduation was electric with anticipation, expectation and pride. Families were there, cheering on their graduates, some of whom had not completed their secondary education and some of whom had never before succeeded in completing any qualification or even had one offered to them before.

Not only was I at the graduation of the Goal 100; I was also at the launch of the program in the same TAFE facility—the South Australian TAFE facility in Whyalla. There was some nervousness and apprehension at the launch of the program. I was there with the local mayor and councillors as well as the Whyalla Economic Development Board Chief Executive Officer and OneSteel executives. There was a quite rugged mix of workers sitting there, aiming to train and get a job. For many of them it was very exciting, but they were also apprehensive. The fact that the 79 graduated and walked into work was living proof of the effectiveness of what Andrew Forrest aims to do with his programs targeting Indigenous workers in Western Australia. Andrew Forrest has said that for every job filled, two go unfilled due to the lack of job-ready Indigenous applicants for the work that is out there in the more remote parts of Western Australia. He knows the importance of training which includes theoretical and hands-on experience—real work experience—and a job offer at the end. Too often in Australia we simply reach for a 457 visa to bring in skilled workers from overseas. We think that it is a quicker, easier and cheaper way to fill the gaps in our skilled workforce. It is not a clever way to go, because, as I mentioned before at the beginning of my remarks, more than 30 per cent of our youth are unemployed in parts of regional Australia. In parts of Indigenous Australia, where most of the population is in rural and remote areas and the people are our first Australians, unemployment is over 80 per cent.

So we have to make sure that someone such as Andrew Forrest, who has established four vocational training and employment centres—or VTECs, as he calls them—in Western Australia, is given every support from this federal government. He has called on the government to set up another 25 of these VTECs across the country. I strongly support what he sees as an essential way to go—where your training is in relationship to a real job and your training outcome, if you graduate, is real employment. I found this was the case when I was congratulating those graduates in 2006 and 2007 in Whyalla.

We have to be serious in Australia about the fact that a lot of our regional training organisations are not very adequate. Many of them are now supervising students and offering courses which are not at all rigorous so that people who do not have sufficient skill graduate. I made a comment on this in parliament just yesterday. I mentioned the fact that apprentices are paid only some $6 an hour and they are not receiving the TAFE sector training that was once expected to be very much a part of their apprenticeship. They are allowed to be fast tracked. Instead of spending four years in an apprenticeship, they can finish now in some two years via what is often called competency based accreditation, where someone from a registered training organisation simply observes them on the job—perhaps standing at a building site where they are able to point to some scaffolding or some piece of plumbing or tiling work or concreting. A photograph is taken of the outcome and a box is ticked, and that apprentice is then told that they have competency in that particular aspect of the trade.

This is not good enough for Australia, which has to have not only people with certificates or qualifications like diplomas or degrees but also the knowledge and skills behind those diplomas, degrees or certificates. There has to be confidence that, through the training that they have been given, the individual will be able to work competently in an industry sector and be able to rise to be a master tradesperson or a self-employed person employing others and in turn offering training themselves.

At the moment many people have real concerns, which was expressed through the Senate inquiry submission from the Queensland government. It was highlighted that training purchased by the states and Commonwealth is often fragmented, that there is duplication of effort and that there is poor quality in outcomes for those who undertake training. Even the ACTU have been critical of the government's approach to addressing the skills shortages, where, too often, you simply have an offshore recruitment drive rather than address the unemployed queuing for an opportunity to gain an income and get off welfare.

The new agency that is now to be funded is the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency. Let us hope that the co-contribution arrangement, with business paying making according to their size contributions up to 50 per cent, will mean that those businesses demand a better outcome from this agency than they got with Skills Australia. Let us hope that, if someone receives a certificate III level or a certificate IV level in aged care, for example, that they do come out of that training genuinely skilled and with work waiting for them.

One function of this agency is the identification of skills needed in the future. We are told the resources sector will be a priority 1, with $15 million to support skills development in that area. I would argue that equally important to the resources sector is food manufacturing. We pay a lot of lip service to manufacturing, but food manufacturing is the biggest employer in Australia when it comes to value adding from plough to plate. There is $15 million to support organisations and regions that are facing structural adjustment and reform challenges, particularly in the manufacturing and tourism sectors. I would hope that those funds go into the regions. Finally, there is a catch-all of $20 million to support upskilling and skills deepening across all sectors of the economy. Twenty million dollars is not very much. Let us hope that the money gets spent appropriately and wisely and that it is targeted properly and that behind the training there are real jobs.

Debate adjourned.