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

I present a supplementary explanatory memorandum to the bill and move the government amendment as circulated:

(1) Clause 9, page 4 (after line 16), at the end of paragraph (a), add:

(iv) issues relating to skills and training, and workforce needs, in regional, rural and remote Australia;

(v) pathways into VET and pathways between VET and higher education;

(vi) opportunities to improve employment, VET and higher education outcomes for cohorts of individuals that have historically experienced labour market disadvantage and exclusion;

Can I firstly indicate that, as the government made clear, this is an important piece of legislation. It was the first bill to be introduced into the parliament in this parliamentary term, and that's because we are looking to effectively respond to skills shortages across the economy and labour market and to do so in an effective manner. We believe that having a body such as Jobs and Skills Australia will provide that device, or will certainly contribute to a more precise understanding of labour shortages and skills requirements, and will more precisely anticipate the emerging areas of demand in a fast-changing economy. For that reason, we want to have this legislation enacted as soon as possible. It is the interim step, but it is an important piece of public policy, which responds to the needs of the workforce—of employers and workers of our labour market and economy.

I start by thanking the members for Indi, Kennedy and Goldstein; and Senators Faruqi and Barbara Pocock, on behalf of the Australian Greens, for their proposed amendments to the Jobs and skills Australia Bill 2022. We've had very significant engagement with members and senators who have a considered interest in these issues, and they sometimes come from different standpoints, but I think they all agree that we need to do better in terms of investing in skills and ensuring we invest in areas where there are skills shortages.

But we also need to provide more advice and better advice to government, employers and industry, generally, that will enable greater access to the labour market for people that miss out, whether it's workers in regional or remote Australia; whether it's women who have been locked out or limited in accessing the labour market; whether it's people with disability who have had great challenges in seeking to be just treated fairly when it comes to employment participation; whether it's First Nations people who have experienced entrenched disadvantage and discrimination historically—and that still exists today. We know we can do better. I'd also add to that list a very significant part of our society: the over-55s, a group of people who, again, have often been subject to discrimination.

The advice of this proposed body is to, yes, look generically at skills shortages and, indeed, to more precisely forecast areas of emerging demand when it comes to skills and labour. It's also looking to find solutions to impediments to employment for many, many Australians. I'd like to thank the previous senators and members that I mentioned. Through those discussions, they allowed me to move this amendment, which goes some way to expressing their concerns. I also think it's important to foreshadow that there'll be another engagement with this place and the other place, with more legislation to come so that we can finalise this body. We believe we need to move very rapidly to enact an interim body to supersede the National Skills Commission. We do think there's further work to be done, and I make this pledge to the opposition and to the crossbench: we will engage with them genuinely and fully in ensuring we get those reforms in place as well.

The government has accepted, effectively, the substance of these amendments, and they will be proposed as government amendments. The amendments recognise the distinct circumstances faced, as I said earlier, by people living in regional, rural and remote Australia and those that have historically experienced labour market disadvantage and exclusion. The revised explanatory memorandum notes that those more marginalised, whether by way of age, health, gender or background, are among the cohorts the body's analysis will assist. The revised explanatory materials will also clarify that, when consulting with other persons or bodies, these may include, for example, bodies representing the university sector; persons from regional, rural or remote Australia; First Nations persons; and recent migrants. This revised explanatory memorandum will be tabled in the Senate.

The amendments being moved will also ensure that, as the responsible minister and together with the Secretary of the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, I can be provided with advice by the JSA in relation to additional matters that will help to improve employment opportunities for individuals and strengthen Australia's economy. These important government amendments will add to the functions of Jobs and Skills Australia and its responsibility for providing advice on issues relating to skills and training and to workforce needs in regional, rural and remote Australia, pathways into VET and pathways between VET and higher education, opportunities to improve employment, and VET and higher education outcomes for cohorts that having story that historically experienced labour market disadvantage and exclusion.

This amendment also clarifies that the advice Jobs and Skills Australia develops from its analysis will allow consideration of governments and potentially industry to improve access to training and employment outcomes and clarifies that Jobs and Skills Summit Australia analysis will also ensure the experiences of priority cohorts are better understood in order to enable governments to develop targeted policy improvement to address access and equity in the jobs and skills system. (Extension of time granted) These amendments, together with the feedback received from over 55 submissions to the Senate committee inquiry into this bill and across the two day Jobs and Skills Summit, reinforce the importance of establishing Jobs and Skills Australia urgently so it can begin its important work in addressing the skills and workforce needs of the country.

Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in support of this amendment to the Jobs and Skills Australia Bill 2022 and the new subsection (4), which adopts the amendment circulated. This amendment adds an additional function to Jobs and Skills Australia to provide advice to the minister and secretary in relation to skills and training and workforce needs in regional, rural and remote Australia. I'm grateful for the input and support of the member for Kennedy, who also represents a large regional electorate and will speak to this amendment as well.

This bill started off repeating a mistake from the initial National Skills Commission Bill, which overlooked the unique skills and workforce needs of regional, rural and remote Australia. I also moved a regional focus amendment to the previous bill, which was voted down by the former coalition government, astonishingly including the National Party, which claims to represent the interests of regional Australia. It was eventually rebranded as a government amendment and became law, which I supported. So I'm very pleased to stand today and support this amendment, as it's a significant enhancement to an important statutory body.

I'd like to thank the minister for working constructively with me as I've sought to address a blind spot in this legislation. This oversight has too often been the experience of policymaking regarding rural and regional communities, which is so often an afterthought rather than a key player in the economic prosperity of this country. We cannot lose sight of the unique needs and opportunities in regional Australia in developing labour markets, skills, training needs and VET training. My electorate is ready to go. We're ready to thrive and prosper and want to take up the jobs of the future and contribute to our country's economic growth. We don't want just fly-in fly-out; we're ready to grow our own.

Increasing VET places in TAFE is an Admiral goal, but our TAFEs are struggling with ageing infrastructure. We can't train our young people for the jobs of the future when their facilities are stuck in the 1970s. My electorate is at the forefront of the regional transition to renewables. But how do we train engineers to install renewable energy facilities and mechanics to service electric vehicles when the facilities are still only appropriate for petrol engines? We simply can't train them to their full potential, so I want the government to be looking at this.

Access is another unique barrier faced by rural, regional and remote Australians. We shouldn't need to move away to gain secure employment or the right training opportunities We all know the transformative effect of education. But, for many rural and regional people, it comes at too high a cost if they need to leave their family and community for that step up in their careers, and they often don't return. In this context, I believe the time is right for a regional Australia white paper. This was a central recommendation of the 2018 Regions at the ready report. This would involve a comprehensive consultation process and a look at improving education and training of young people, and the development of a national regional higher education strategy—both aims relate to the goals of this bill. We owe it to the millions of Australians who live outside the capitals to do better than the decades-long piecemeal approach that does justice to no-one.

In closing, I will keep speaking out for rural, regional and remote Australia so that we attract the best candidates, offer the best jobs and provide our people with the skills and training for the jobs of the future.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

God bless the member for Indi for her perspicacity and initiative, and I thank the minister for his enlightenment. We were told it was going to be a reasonable government, and this is a good example. I say that with all sincerity because previous governments have not listened to a good idea and incorporated it. They've been too arrogant and obfuscating. I'll leave it at that.

I have a meeting this afternoon with the minister for the army. We cannot get 10 truck drivers to simply take the sugar cane from Mareeba to the Mosman mill. If we can't find those truck drivers, then that cane will rot in the field and not only will the farmer lose his income from that cane for this year, but he will also have the cost of disposing of that cane. Many of them have been now 15 years below cost of production, and they're not going to survive. That's one example, we can't get 10 truck drivers. It's been on the national news. Doctors: we have no doctor at Mission Beach, we have no doctor at Julia Creek and we have no doctor at Cardwell. We're in a desperate situation. Two of our leading medical practices where people are over 70 years of age are not going to continue much longer. Then there are fruit pickers. I saw half a kilometre long of mangoes almost up to my waist. They just can't get pickers. The bloke who owns it—and he's 83 years of age—and his son are down there picking mangoes. It's one of the biggest operations in Australia. There are avocados on the ground all over Australia. We can't get pickers.

I pulled up at a roadhouse because I was dying of hunger and we needed petrol in the car. The roadhouses were all closed because they couldn't get anyone to work there. Roadhouses are now being closed because we can't get people to work there.

A lady came over to me in Mount Isa the other day saying they were desperate for chemists. They simply can't get them. And I have a tiny job for a steel fabricator. I have been to seven of them and they say that they can't get anyone to work in steel fabrication.

There are two Australias: the honourable member for Indi and I represent one of those Australias—I call it the golden Australia—and there is the other Australia. Of course, in New South Wales you know that NSW stands for Newcastle, Sydney and Wollongong and nothing else. In Queensland there's South-East Queensland, and the rest of us simply do not exist. In the democratic system the winner takes all. If you have the majority, you have the power and the minority gets nothing. That's the nature of democracy and it's one of the shortcomings.

Guess where the coal is? We export only two things now: iron ore and coal. We're going to close the coal industry down, which rather intrigues me. But guess where the iron ore and coal are? They are two-thirds of our entire exports. There are the two big ones up there and sort of nothing underneath. What's underneath that? There is aluminium and cattle maybe. Iron ore, coal, silver, lead, zinc, copper, aluminium and cattle are all in the golden Australia.

In every single redistribution in Australia we lose a seat from rural Australia. So the 1.2 million people who are on 95 per cent of the continent are leaving. Do you think that the world accepts a vacuum? No, it doesn't. Some 265 years ago Australians said: 'We don't need populating. We don't need an army. We don't need any of those things.' I don't think we Australians have changed very much. The colour of our faces might have a bit, but nothing else has changed.

So the initiative taken by the member for Indi is very good. I commend her and I commend the minister for accepting these proposals, because this is the only way that we can address these problems. I will give you one example before I sit down—the United Kingdom backpackers. We desperately need them. They were the biggest group of backpackers we had. The government said that backpackers from the United Kingdom don't have to go to rural areas anymore, so now we have no fruit pickers and no backpackers. They're not coming back. That's the nature of it. Hopefully, this will address those problems.

Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of this amendment. I appreciate the consideration given to me by the minister and his office and the inclusion in this amendment of gender in the context of labour market disadvantage and exclusion. This amendment may seem a small step for women, but it should have significant implications. I hope that, apart from anything else, it's a sign that this government will be taking every possible step to enhance women's participation in the workforce for the sake of not only productivity and our prosperity but also gender equity.

As I said at the time of the Jobs and Skills Summit, the government must not become bedazzled by the high-viz side of the workforce, leaving the pink workforce at home yet again. As has previously been said, employers are bemoaning labour shortages in many sectors of the economy. For example, a survey of 6½ thousand mainly female retail workers conducted by the University of New South Wales found that 35 per cent of mothers surveyed would work more hours if the rosters were more predictable. The SDA estimates that there is a pool of at least 40,000 underemployed, mainly female, retail workers, and it's much the same story in aged care.

Empowering women to work must be central to all legislation and all policy. I've said in this place that all legislation should include a gender impact statement, and this amendment to the legislation and the explanatory memorandum effectively does that. It means that Jobs and Skills Australia and its commissioner should have a laser focus on empowering women to enter the workforce, because women are done with being secondary.

At a time when we have chronic workforce shortages, there is no more appropriate moment to shift the dial. Businesses large and small, across my electorate of Goldstein, are crying out for staff. It is crimping their ability to recover from the ravages of the COVID pandemic, inhibiting their ability to contribute to our return to a high-growth economy. While I welcome employers and unions joining forces to promote more support for apprentices, we all know that with few exceptions, like hairdressing, trades are overwhelmingly male dominated.

Highly feminised industries must be revalued. This means closing the gender wage gap and providing ready opportunities for enhancing skills to recognise the importance of their jobs. It means providing cheap, affordable, accessible child care and early childhood education so that women and children—and, indeed, families—can thrive. It means supporting the proposals of the member for Warringah, in her motion today, to provide at least 26 weeks of paid parental leave, to set the beginning of next year as the start date for lowering the cost of early childhood education.

A decade ago, the Grattan Institute found that an extra six per cent of women in the workforce would increase GDP by $25 billion. KPMG modelling in 2018 found that halving the gap between male and female workforce participation would increase GDP by $60 billion by 2038. What are we waiting for? It's a question of priorities. As Grattan's Danielle Wood put it:

… if untapped women's workforce participation was a massive ore deposit, we would have governments lining up to … get it out of the ground.

It's time to finally ensure that women get the opportunities they want and we as a parliament do everything possible to make sure they do.

This amendment is one small but effective step and I look forward to the parliament doing much more. I thank the minister, once again, for his consideration and I commend the amendment to the House.

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

I want to briefly respond to the members who have contributed to this discussion around the amendment that's been moved by the government as a result of discussions with the members for Indi, Kennedy and Goldstein and others, and senators as well.

It is certainly, I think, an improvement to the bill. I want to make it clear the government did believe and has always believed that remote and regional Australia matters. But having it expressed in this way improves it and clarifies, if there was any clarification required, the intent of the government to ensure that we do things in a way that will provide support to communities beyond our major cities.

So too is the need to ensure that women have better opportunities. The engagement with the member for Goldstein was an important discussion. The member impressed upon the government that it would be good to make clear how important this vehicle would be in providing more opportunities for women in the workforce, for women wanting to increase their participation or gain access to participation in the labour market. That's an absolutely vital role for the government and, therefore, for Jobs and Skills Australia. Important too were the member for Kennedy's concerns about regional and remote Australia.

This amendment goes a long way to ensuring that the concerns of the members engaged with the government are met. We want to continue discussions not just on the full maturation of Jobs and Skills Australia but on these issues generally. We believe governments should play a more proactive role in providing opportunities, whether it's for prospective workers in a remote community or women who have found that there are too many impediments to accessing work that they merit. For that reason, we'll continue those discussions with subsequent policies. That will contribute, I believe, to improving both our economy and our inclusive approach to our society and labour market more generally.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the amendment be agreed to.

Question agreed to.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.