Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

As I say, so too with the Australian technical colleges. The amount of effort and money that had to be expended to get going always meant that we were heading towards the situation we currently face: two years, five colleges and very few students. A policy announcement at election time is one thing. The implementation of that policy when you are in government is how you will be measured. It is clear that the government was far too optimistic about how Australian technical colleges would be implemented. There is now a huge deficit in this country when it comes to skills, a deficit that those of us on this side have been concerned about for quite some time.

The Australian technical colleges that were meant to be turning out 7,500 students each and every year are so far delivering fewer than 100. Even if all the colleges are up and running within the next two years—which, you would have to say, is a big ask considering it took two years to get five of them going—the Australian labour market will still be waiting three or more years before an appreciable number of trainees will be entering the labour market. That is simply not good enough. If the government were serious about overcoming skills shortages then they would have worked with the states and the territories to overcome the problems that they perceived with the TAFE system. If they were serious, they would have developed policies that would not require waiting years and years for a single graduate to appear. If they were serious, they would have opened more than five colleges within two years.

This is an election policy announcement that may have garnered support back in 2004 but so far has failed to deliver. It is clear that it was seen as one of the key policy announcements from the last election campaign and was mentioned by the Liberal Party director in his address to the National Press Club back in 2004 as one of the key policy initiatives of the Howard government. The director of the Liberal Party actually claimed that it was a well thought out policy that had been worked on for 12 months prior to the election. If that is the case, it is even more scandalous that, two years after the election, we are still waiting on the delivery.

I suspect, actually, that that work was all about where the 24 technical colleges would be sited for the greatest political advantage, rather than being constructive work on meeting the skills shortages needs in our economy. It is clear, to me at least, that sufficient time was spent on this aspect, but that they failed to do all the other work that was required. The reality is that the Australian people have been sold a three-legged horse; it looks like it will run until such a time as it actually has to. For all of the fanfare and the rhetoric, most of the colleges will not be operating until next year—all things being equal, that is. It is an interesting policy: it announced in one election year that most of the colleges would not start operating until the next election year and that no graduates would be delivered until the election year after that.

So the Australian people get a policy announcement in 2004 that, by 2007, most but not all of the technical colleges will be up and running, all things being equal; and, finally, by 2010, there will be some tradespeople. What a nonsensical implementation of what should be a straightforward approach to fixing a crisis in our economy! This was all brought about because the Commonwealth government had to go and set up their own system. Rather than working with the states and territories, the Commonwealth government thought they knew best. They would rather expend over $300 million to set up yet another system that, at its peak, will only deliver just over 7,500 students.

It is interesting to consider what the current shortfall of tradespeople in Australia is. Figures suggest that even at the present time we are short by something in the order of tens of thousands. At the rate that these technical colleges will be graduating people, we will never, ever address that shortfall. Little wonder then that there are over 40,000 holders of temporary work visas in Australia—there is an exercise in window-dressing going on. At most, when all 24 technical colleges are up and running, we will get, as I say, 7,500 students. We have over 40,000 skilled workers from overseas at the current time, not counting the 45,000 people who are overstaying their visas, of course—that is another issue. So we have a situation where, as a bare minimum, the Australian government know that the skills shortage amounts to something like 40,000 people as of this moment; their answer to that is to create these technical colleges that will train, at best, 7,500 students per year.

That is the same ridiculous situation that we have with doctors in this country. When the government came into office they slashed the number of training places. Years down the track we end up with—guess what?—shortages of doctors. The government’s solution was to increase the number of training places for doctors. The knock-on effect from that was reported to me during a discussion with the Perth and Hills Division of General Practice recently. The knock-on effect from the influx of students is that someone actually has to train them. So doctors, who are already in short supply, are now expected to spend valuable time training all those new medical students—yet another crisis we did not have to have.

All this demonstrates that it was the initial decision that was flawed—and so it is with the skills shortages in Australia. As I have said on numerous occasions, skills shortages do not appear without warning or lead indicators. The government’s decision back in the nineties to slash funding to TAFEs is a major contributor to the problems we now face. The solution of developing a new system from the ground up is not going to seriously address the shortages for years to come, if at all. Even blind Freddy knows that to create a completely new training system takes time—time that in the heat of an election campaign is not important but which in dealing with skills shortages is critical.

I know that the organisations that have tendered to operate the colleges will do an excellent job. My criticism of the Australian technical colleges is not a criticism of the organisations that will operate them. In fact, TAFE is involved in operating the one in the Pilbara—even though the government decided they did not want to fund the TAFE system, they are happy to work with it to establish the new technical college. Nor is my criticism of the students who will choose to enrol at the colleges. My criticism is directed fair and square at the Howard government.

This policy was always going to be difficult to implement. This policy was always going to be time consuming. It was never about delivering a real solution to the skills shortages that are being experienced in our economy. This policy was for an election campaign. It was to tell the Australian people that the government had a plan and was going to deliver. Well, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say. Two years on and there are only five colleges open. Two years on and three locations are now being told that they may lose their technical colleges because the minister is not satisfied with the proposals that have been lodged. For the young people of Ballina, Queanbeyan and Dubbo the policy has so far absolutely failed to deliver. We can all hope that the remainder of the technical colleges are up and running as soon as possible and that they contribute to overcoming the skills shortages. However, based on progress to date, the Australian people are right to be concerned about this policy. Given that there is going to be an election next year, if the government comes out and announces the creation of additional technical colleges, at least the Australian people will then know what time it will take before the system is up and operating.