Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, there are 140,000 fewer apprentices than there were in 2013, and no wonder, when $3 billion has been cut from VET funding in that period. This puts standards and safety at risk, reduces job opportunities and increases labour shortages. TAFEs in particular are in dire straits. For example, a second-year trade apprentice at TasTAFE has not been offered any online learning for a core subject during the pandemic and has had to make do with a single 30-minute phone call with his teacher. Prime Minister, what are you going to do about this? When will the government give vocational training the priority this country needs now more than ever?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question, and I agree with his suggestion of the need to ensure this is a national priority, and that is why I have done exactly that—several weeks ago, when I stood up at the National Press Club and when we established the National Federation Reform Council. Today, in fact, at the meeting of national cabinet, we established skills as one of six key areas that need to have greater cooperation and support from states, territories and the Commonwealth government to ensure that we are getting people rightly trained, rightly skilled, to get into the jobs that are going to build businesses into the future.

This is an area that has had a very vexed history. The Commonwealth, by law, is required each year to sign out a cheque to the states and territories to the value of some $1½ billion. It's guaranteed and it's indexed. So we are required by law to continue to provide that funding. There is nothing in that arrangement, which was set in place by the previous government, that enabled any of that funding to be directed towards TAFE or private training or to be tagged to any particular outcome or training any particular group of people or matching it against any identified skills needs. As a result, for TAFEs in particular, their funding source, their level of funding, is totally determined by state governments. That's how the system works. There are varying results.

I learnt today from the New South Wales Premier that, through the initiative the New South Wales government has put through their TAFE to get people training during the COVID crisis, they've got 100,000 people who've completed those courses. That's fantastic. That's a state government that's getting on with that job, and I would commend those sorts of initiatives, and all premiers listened to what the Premier in New South Wales said today. The partnership we have on skills has got to be better—that's what I'm saying. What we are doing at the moment is putting over $1.5 billion every year, with no accountability for outcomes. That is not good enough, and that agreement needs to change. It has to respond to identified skills needs and changes that need to be made in the skills and training system. Those are exactly the types of reforms that my government is seeking to pursue, even as we speak.