Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

The Democrats welcome this move to set up an advisory body on skills shortages. It seems to me that the last government did not have one. It was pretty clear, from the measures that they put in place to solve the skills crisis, that it was more knee-jerk and vote-catching than anything to do with establishing good public policy. However, I want to urge the government to make sure it is clear—because it is not clear in the Skills Australia Bill 2008exactly what the Skills Australia body will do. I hope it is not just about plumbers and electricians. We do need them—there is no question about that—but I have already spoken twice in this place today about skills shortages. On one occasion I spoke about the health sector, where skills shortages are so serious as to be worthy of a very high priority for Skills Australia to address. It is not just that we do not have enough doctors; there are, as I said, many ways in which we need to change our health system in order to allow other health professionals to be part of that system under existing structures.

I also spoke to the bill concerning the additional 50 teachers in the Northern Territory in Indigenous schools, where there is, again, an enormous shortage of teachers. We know that measures such as introducing 50 new teaching places will fail absolutely if we do not have sufficient teachers on the ground doing it. Or, at least, they will come from somewhere else where they are currently needed and in employment. So I urge the government to not just look at what would loosely be described as the ‘trades’ but make sure that this body also takes care of the professions, such as nurses, teachers, dentists, psychiatrists and the full range of those who are in short supply but so necessary to us in delivering health and education.

The reason I am critical of the former government in terms of skills is that, as I said, it seemed to me that decisions were knee-jerk. The former Prime Minister’s famous tech schools initiative was determined to bypass the states to put in place something which was very much a fifties view of what technical education should be about. I gather it was variously met with disdain and disapproval from the state governments because no discussion had taken place. I note that this body, Skills Australia, is charged with the business of talking with state governments, and that is a really good move. We need to get away from this whole idea that the Commonwealth will supersede and step over the service responsibilities of the states, and we need to work with them. I congratulate the government for doing this.

However, when I turn to the section about the appointment of members of Skills Australia, I fear that all of the Democrats’ work in this place putting up hundreds of amendments talking about appointment on merit and the sorts of things that ought to be in legislation in putting up boards has been ignored. There is nothing in the bill about appointment on merit, there is nothing here about probity and there is nothing here about independent scrutiny of appointments. I have to say, Minister Evans, that it is a great disappointment to the Democrats, after all of our efforts and all of the amendments that we have put up, to find that these points do not appear in this bill. Including them ought to have been an easy thing to do and is something that you should have done.

We have got a list of the sorts of experience that members of Skills Australia should have, and that is a good thing, and we have got mention of a member being able to be appointed on a part-time basis, but, at the end of the day, members, including the chair, are to be appointed by the minister by written instrument. Here we go again. I will not be putting up our standard amendment, because, as I understand it, the government is already underway with its appointment process, at least for the chair. We have acknowledged that that is the case and modified our amendment. I foreshadow that when we go into committee I will move our amendment, which is numbered QM342, and not put our standard amendment, which is based on the Nolan principles.