Dana Wortley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2006. In doing so, I share the concerns already highlighted by my Labor colleagues in this chamber and in the House. While this bill appropriates funds to Australian technical colleges, we have some reservations about how effective this allocation will be. This is the second amendment to the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Act 2005.

The bill before us today seeks to increase the total funding appropriated under the act from $343.6 million to $456.2 million over the 2005-09 period. The government claims the increase of $112.6 million that we are dealing with today is needed because of cost increases associated with the start-up and operation of the colleges. The reality is that this is a significant cost blow-out in the government’s Australian technical colleges program. Obviously, it has not gone to plan. The colleges are behind schedule and the government have, without proper planning, pushed many of the ATCs to open on temporary sites. I understand that issues regarding registration and curriculum are in many cases still not resolved. Why have the government pushed to have the ATCs open when some are clearly not adequately prepared? Could it be because it is an election year?

We have serious concerns regarding the skills crisis we are facing today in Australia. The people of Australia have serious concerns. Parents are concerned that their children have not been able to gain entry to TAFE colleges or to other existing trade training. Industry is concerned that it is not able to access skilled workers. We will continue to be faced with these problems because of this government’s inadequate funding and its inaction in providing apprenticeships, training and adequate further education places for our young people.

For more than 10 long years, the Howard government has failed to deliver appropriate levels of skills training. It has neglected the skills required for our workforce. We have Australian business and industry sending recruitment personnel overseas to recruit skilled and highly trained staff to assist in addressing our skills shortages. This government must stop playing the blame game and accept responsibility for the skills crisis in Australia today. It must accept responsibility because it failed to commit to our young people who wanted to learn a trade. This government has delivered 10 long years of neglect in our TAFE system—the main institution for the education and training for vocational occupations in this country. Under the Howard government in the past eight years, more than 325,000 potential students have been turned away from the TAFE system. That is 325,000 Australians who have effectively been denied access to skills training that would have provided them with a skilled job for which they could have expected long-term employment opportunities—and industry and business could have expected skilled workers.

During the 2004 election campaign, the Prime Minister launched the Australian technical colleges policy to fix the skills crisis because it had become apparent to the Australian community that there was a problem. It had become a political issue in the same way that climate change has become an issue in the community. For years we had a government in denial, sceptical about climate change, but the political pressure has been put on because it is an election year and the government is again faced with making policy on the run.

In relation to vocational and further education and training in Australia, I make this comment: in my own state of South Australia three technical colleges have only just opened their doors in the last couple of weeks, although not all have permanent homes yet. I understand that the three technical colleges in South Australia combined have a total enrolment for this year of 270 students. According to the government’s claims, Australian technical colleges across Australia will create 7,500 places over four years. We know that this will not solve Australia’s skills crisis.

Educators have also raised concerns about the retention rates of students entering the ATCs because, with the workload demands placed on the students, there is the possibility of students leaving before they have completed their course. The academic workload, the training and the average eight-hour weekly industry placement, which may also be taken as block training, is a heavy workload for 16- and 17-year-olds. And when they complete their ATC training they will have only completed the first year of a three- or four-year apprenticeship. Given this, it is likely that the government’s target of 7,500 places over four years will not be met, because it is based on the assumption that every student who starts at an ATC will complete their course. This just will not happen.

The TAFE system has doubled in size since 1995, yet federal government funding has fallen in real terms. Martin Riordan, the Executive Director of TAFE Directors Australia, which represents Australia’s 55 TAFE institutes, believes the government was wrong not to use the TAFE network as the base for the new ATCs. He has also called on the government to integrate the ATC network into the TAFE system, asking that the Commonwealth review the progress of the ATCs at the Council of Australian Governments meeting in April, and with good reason. In 2005 alone, the unmet demand for education and training places in TAFE institutes was 34,200. That is 34,200 people who wanted a place but could not get one. In the same year, the unmet demand in the whole of the vocational education training sector was 45,100. These are not just figures; these are 45,100 real people with real families who wanted to embark on training to gain skills who were turned away. This government should be working cooperatively with the states and increasing funding for programs that are already established and are working. These people should not have been turned away.

There have been concerns raised about the overall impact on the institutions already up and running in the TAFE and VET sectors which could be providing the skills training, but instead we have huge sums of money going into the government’s new ATC system. The average expenditure for each student who goes through the Australian technical colleges will exceed by thousands of dollars the average expenditure for each student in TAFE. In addition to the set-up and operational costs that we are discussing here today, Australian technical colleges are entitled to all of the funding available to schools under the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Act 2004. They are also entitled to general recurrent funding per student, most of them at the non-government school rate. They will also have available to them targeted funding for special programs and capital funding. But it does not end there: the ATCs will also receive the relevant state funding. The ATCs will receive all this while the Howard government fails to make a general commitment to our existing TAFE system.

Stephen Smith, the member for Perth and Labor’s shadow minister for education and training, got it right when he said that the skills shortage in this country:

... will only be resolved by a much greater investment in education generally. It will only be resolved by a much greater investment in further technical and vocational education and training, but making that investment on behalf of the Commonwealth, in conjunction with the states, using facilities that are currently available—refurbishing and enhancing them. We need agreement between the states and the Commonwealth about priorities and agreement with industry about what the skills needs will be down the track. That is the only sensible way forward in this area, and that will be the approach that Labor adopts in opposition and, subsequently, in government.

It is of concern that this government has failed to adequately fund our existing structures. When the first student graduates from an ATC in 2009, they will still only graduate with the first year of an apprenticeship—the first year of three or four. This too is of concern, because Australian industry cannot wait.