Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In speaking to the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2006, I would like to firstly acknowledge the very excellent contribution made by my colleague Senator George Campbell, who outlined the failure of this government to address the skills crisis and, in doing so, attracted the ire of Senator Ian Macdonald. I can understand that. This is a touchy subject for the government. They do not like to be reminded of the absolute inadequacy of their response to the crisis we face. It is a crisis that they ignored until the last federal election, in 2004, with the creation of the Australian technical colleges program—a decision that was not based on sound public policy; it was simply a political fix. Now Senator Ian Macdonald has tried to put a positive spin on the overwhelming evidence put forward today by Senator George Campbell. I suppose he believes that this is his job, but he failed. Why did Senator Ian Macdonald fail? Because the evidence is indeed overwhelming and the policy failure of this government is there for all to see. They have been exposed.

This bill appropriates additional funding of $112.6 million for the government’s Australian technical colleges over the period 2006 to 2009, bringing the total funding to $456.2 million over the period 2005 to 2009, nearly half a billion dollars. Labor have indicated that we will be supporting this bill as a matter of principle because any expenditure by the government to enhance vocational education and training and skills is welcome.

However, we have made it clear throughout this debate and with our second reading amendment that this government has sat on its hands. The government have neglected skills training and have presided over a skills crisis—complacent in their inactivity until it dawned on them in 2004 that they needed to do something because of repeated calls from Labor, industry and the sector. But, unfortunately, their response has been inadequate. They continue to fail to make the necessary investment needed to address the skills crisis.

They have refused to cooperate with the states, preferring to wait until around 2010-12 for these Australian technical colleges to produce one single qualified tradesperson. By that time, as has been projected by the Australian Industry Group, Australia’s skills shortage will mean hundreds of thousands of vacancies. But the government is content to see, at best, around 7½ thousand tradespeople graduate at a cost of nearly half a billion. This is their effort to relieve the nation’s dire skills shortage.

Labor retains strong reservations about the effectiveness of the Australian technical colleges program and its capacity to genuinely combat the severe shortage of skilled labour in the country. The legitimacy of such reservations is nowhere better reflected than in the current situation unfolding in my home state of Tasmania, where the establishment of technical colleges in the north, and particularly the north-west of the state, has done nothing at all to address the severe shortage of skilled labour in such regions. The ineffectiveness of the colleges in these areas to address the problem confirms what Labor has been suggesting for some time: the technical college program was a bandaid, short-term, tokenistic, political reaction to a long-term, practical problem faced by this country.

Indeed, the establishment of colleges in marginal federal electorates, such as in the north and the north-west of Tasmania, appears to be more of a political stunt to secure votes rather than a genuine, well thought-out attempt to address the severe shortage of skilled labour in such regions. What is the result? Regional cities, such as Burnie on the north-west coast of Tasmania, are left struggling to fill job vacancies in areas such as construction and manufacturing, which the technical colleges were established to address. Indeed, the situation in Burnie provides a perfect illustration of the complete ineffectiveness of the technical colleges to address the skills shortage in Tasmania.

The city, which during the early nineties experienced one of the highest rates of unemployment in the nation due to the closure of the APPM paper-making mill, is now experiencing a period of excitement, renewal and increased investment. However, the city’s capacity to find its feet and move forward has been stunted by the shortage of skilled labour in the region. A city council member, during an interview with the ABC last year, noted that local employers were having great difficulty filling positions and there was an immediate need for 300 to 400 skilled labourers in the city.

Such sentiments are supported by figures revealed in a survey of the region completed by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations in September 2006. The survey found that 50 per cent of employers in the region had difficulty filling vacancies, with 13 per cent of vacancies at the time remaining unfilled. Recruitment difficulties were most prominent in construction and manufacturing industries, with the lack of necessary training and skills being the main reason why applicants were unsuitable and the positions remained unfilled.

What a debacle! Here is a city that is trying to move forward, with employers desperate for workers to fill positions, yet it still experiences a higher unemployment rate than the rest of the state because applicants lack the skills and training necessary to fill the positions. The technical college campus located in the city is unlikely to make any difference to the current situation in the short term, with fewer than 100 enrolments for the current year. The Australian technical colleges program has so far failed to combat the severe skills shortage in north-west Tasmania, a situation that is not likely to improve in the near future. The government’s decision to opt for this short-term, bandaid solution to the problem is not only failing to overcome the skills shortage; it is preventing regional—

Debate interrupted.