Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Members from both sides are completing the work of the House Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training looking at innovation and creativity and making sure that the next generation have all the skills that they need to keep Australia the lucky country. We know that equipping our workforce with the skills needed is a challenging role. You cannot simply be asleep at the wheel. Retraining, upskilling and these kinds of things simply cannot be left to when a business closes. I commend TAFE Queensland and CSIRO for working closely together to try to make sure that young Queenslanders have those opportunities.

We are looking for creative and innovative young Australians. We need to know—and I went to Metro South TAFE last week and met with Liz Morgan and her students—that those students are being vested with the skills that they are going to need for the rapidly changing jobs of the next 10 years. They are not going to be completely changing. There will be new jobs requiring higher level skills, but in many cases it is just a nudge towards a better understanding of technology. That is precisely what TAFE is focused on—taking these students to a higher level of skills and qualifications, because we have to continually adapt in this fast-moving world. Other economies are doing it very successfully. Most importantly, we need connections between our training facilities and the small to medium enterprises that are doing the employing. We have to remind bosses to collaborate with training institutions and give our new students coming through every chance of a great, productive job.