Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

We are debating today the government’s Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2006. The purpose of the bill is to increase the Australian government’s contribution to its establishment of some 25 technical colleges from its original $343 million to $456 million. That is an increase of $112 million. And it is necessary to bring in this amendment bill. The fact is that the establishment of the technical colleges in the original bill has been a success. The additional funding will provide the capacity for the technical colleges to provide high levels of support to both students and employers who engage students as Australia’s school based apprentices.

The key feature of the technical colleges program is flexibility. Each college has been encouraged to pursue a model that best meets the needs of the region in which it is established. This flexibility has resulted in the operational costs necessary to get each college up and running being far higher than was originally expected. These costs vary from college to college because the secret of the success of this program is listening to the regions, the local educators, the local chamber of commerce, the local businessmen and all those who have an interest in establishing the technical colleges. That has been the secret of its success and that is why today we seek to introduce this bill to increase the funding for the colleges.

As the government speakers have rightly outlined, against the railings of the other side, the purpose of the technical colleges is to attract young people back to the trades. It is vital that we do that because it is true to say that Australia is facing a chronic skills shortage—and I will speak on that matter later. But this is a long-term policy to put in place an educational system that attracts young people who, unless the technical colleges had been established, would not otherwise be attracted to the trades. It takes up grades 11 and 12 so that students can advance their apprenticeship in a trade. The Australian technical college initiative offers a new approach to achieving this and forms an important part of the Australian government’s overall strategy in tackling the skills shortages which we are now facing.

The technical colleges will promote trade qualifications as a highly valued alternative to a university degree and will develop a reputation that will show students and parents that vocational education and training in the trades is a secure career, a career in demand, a long-term career and certainly one that has a high rate of return. We initially had a plan to establish 25 colleges. Twenty of those have already signed up and are receiving funding. Over 2,000 students will be educated in a trade and, at its peak, there will be 7,500 students. Those figures are different from those quoted by the other side, but they are the figures: 24 of the 25 Australian technical colleges have been announced; 20 of these have received government funding and all will be fully operational by 2009; 2,000 students are in training and, at its peak, there will be 7,500. This is a policy we announced before the 2004 election. It is now early 2007. It takes time to establish the technical colleges. In fact, the government will say it has been done very quickly, such has been the interest within the local regions and the popularity of the idea to build a new school from the bottom up. There has been absolutely no cooperation from the other side or from the state governments, but the demand has been great from the local communities.

I would say the previous minister, Mr Hardgrave, deserves a medal for the way he went about establishing these particular colleges. The government has acted in haste and the people in local government and their local communities have accepted the establishment of the technical colleges in the region. In fact, many of the regions that missed out lament it to be so. So much so, I would say, that once the 25 are set up, this is the sort of program that will go from 25 to 50 to 100 technical colleges, which of course the other side do not particularly want. If you had listened to the previous speakers, and I particularly single out two of the previous speakers, Senator George Campbell, who is in the chamber now, and Senator Carr who opened up the debate for the government—for the opposition—