Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

There is no doubt that the upskilling of the Australian workforce is an honourable and proper pursuit of government. The skilling of the Australian workforce today will determine the productivity of our nation tomorrow. The productivity of our nation tomorrow will determine the wealth and wellbeing of our nation into the future. Can we fund a proper health system? Can we protect our borders? It is to fund those sorts of functions of government that we need a healthy economy. Indeed, can we pay off Greens-Labor's massive debt, now well in excess of $130 billion? It is the biggest debt incurred in the shortest time in Australian history. Make no mistake, the issues that are part and parcel of this bill are of vital importance to Australia's tomorrows and beyond.

What is the government seeking to do with the Skills Australia Amendment (Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency) Bill 2012? The bill will subsume Skills Australia, a bureaucracy established only some three or four years ago during the halcyon days of then newly elected Prime Minister Rudd. Remember when he had to change everything? Of course, he had to meddle in this area as well. Now, three or four years later, the government has come to the realisation that Mr Rudd's good idea at the time is no longer such a good idea. As a result, they have to amend that which they introduced only a few short years ago; and at a cost of about $25 million for a new bureaucracy to undertake the exercise.

The new Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency was announced in the 2011-12 budget. It will be a new agency. The agency will have responsibility for the administration of the $558 million Workforce Development Fund. This fund is available to pay up to half the costs of training for the upskilling of existing workers. The government's contribution equates to about $4,292 per training place, based on their predictions of training 130,000 workers.

Let us stop there for a moment. When you ask about Labor's employment figures and projections, you know they get it wrong, and substantially wrong. It was only two budgets ago that they promised the Australian people that 500,000 new jobs would be created over a two-year period. In the last budget that was reduced to 300,000—a 40 per cent reduction.