Lin Thorp (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

As an educationalist, I find it disturbing that this place is being used to consider quite a retrograde step in educational history. There is a movement in education that has been going on since the late eighties, with a move from prescriptive assessment to descriptive assessment, and from time based learning to competency based learning. It is recognising what learning is. It is recognising that individuals learn at different paces and in different methods to come to the same place, which is a level of competency in a particular area. Time based learning is going back to the past. Time based learning presumes that you have a group of students—whether they be young school students or people who are studying, in this case, to be engineers—who are all in the same room, at the same time, with the same teacher, and, at the end of that particular period of time, they are all qualified to do a particular task. That is not the way education works today. Education works today on the acquiring of skills. It does not matter whether it be about learning how to be a barista or how to be a neurosurgeon. I, for one, would prefer, if I were to be under the knife in a serious operation, to know that that particular individual had not just served time at university for a number of years but had reached the level of competency that they deserve. This is what this is all about.

Going along with the analogy of medical training, in a different job I worked for the medical school of Tasmania. My task was to review the curriculum of the six-year course for all students doing a Bachelor of Medicine and a Bachelor of Medical Science. What became very clear during that exercise was that so much of that training was time based and it needed to move. Over the years, more and more had been added to the curriculum, based simply on facts and figures, rote learning, if you like, and it needed in to be brought up to the end of the 20th century, as it was then—this was back in the 1990s. It was a culling of the unnecessary rote learning by medical students of thousands and thousands of unnecessary facts and a move to a teaching model that meant that those students were learning skills that would fit them to make decisions into the future.

Another thing that became disturbingly obvious during that time was that there can be a tendency amongst some professions—and the medical fraternity can be accused of this on occasion, and I strongly suspect that the group behind this particular legislation are of a similar mind—that a closed shop can suit some people. It can suit to have the group of people who have those skills kept quite small because then they can determine their price in the marketplace. It is a very retrograde step to introduce these kinds of out-of-date standards. It is contrary to modern training practices, and it is very inconsistent with global practices. It is contrary to moves that have been made to current Australian government policy reform directions, because the Australian government is committed to introducing competency based progression in Australian apprenticeships and traineeships. There is a global recognition in the educational fraternity that competency based learning is the way to go.

The same kinds of changes have been made in the areas of assessment. There was a time when assessment was purely and simply on a pass/fail. We do not do that anymore. We do not just pass/fail kids. We look at describing what they have achieved over a period of time and describing that achievement on their assessment. That assessment then stops being something that can cruel the life opportunities of a student and actually becomes a tool for teaching. It means that the teacher has a clear description of the abilities and competencies of their students. They can also clearly identify where those gaps are and teach specifically to them. Gone are the days where we simply say, 'For you to be in high school, you just go for six years, and we move you on to high school after you have done your time.' In Tasmania now, a much more modern method of teaching and assessment occurs, whereby students are assessed against the competencies they have achieved. So, within the same age group of students, you can have real recognition of the variety and richness of the achievement of students in those areas.

Those general points about competency based learning as opposed to time serving can be applied generally across all areas of education. But we are talking here, specifically, about how it applies in the area of marine education. Members here may not know that Tasmania is home to the Australian Maritime College. The Maritime College is based in Launceston, a city in the north of the state, and it was due to the efforts of a very well-respected Labor politician, Lance Barnard, that that particular institution came to Tasmania. It has served not just Tasmania but also the broader educational community well for many years now. In fact, it boasts some of the most modern teaching techniques in the world. It is a place that people spend a lot of time and effort trying to get into, such as people from India, from all over South-East Asia and from the United States. They go there because they know they are going to get the very, very best maritime education.

It is globally recognised as a centre of excellence, it has a multimillion-dollar suite of specialist teaching, learning and research facilities and, as I have said, it is internationally acclaimed. It is utilised by government bodies and maritime related businesses worldwide. What is really important is that the staff of the Australian Maritime College are very highly experienced, very highly respected and have very, very strong industry links. They know what they are doing at the Australian Maritime College, and they do not need a draconian piece of legislation to tell them how to teach. I think they would be aghast to know that the college is being hijacked for the quite narrow set of needs of one particular group in the community.

The AMC has two campuses. The main campus is in Newnham, which is a suburb of Launceston. I have had the privilege of visiting that institution on many occasions. If senators ever get the opportunity to visit the Australian Maritime College, I think they would be very impressed by the very high standard of education that that place provides. Amongst other things on the campus is an enormous pool area, which would be almost as tall as this chamber, and would have about the same floor area. The whole area can be darkened and then can be turned into a storm at sea. Waves can be whipped up; the sounds of the wind and the terror of being at sea can be conjured up in this setting. Lifeboats are then thrown in and man overboard procedures can be practised. It is quite phenomenal to see. The college does the most amazing research on wave generation with their equipment. I do not pretend to be technologically up with all of it but, believe me, it is extremely impressive.

They have some of the world's best and most innovative ship simulators available. One can virtually stand on the deck of a ship and have the complete experience of controlling that ship. There are a variety of vessel types and sizes to choose from. They can also simulate the entry into some of the world's biggest and most important ports. For instance, you could take a multithousand-tonne ship into a big harbour, like New York Harbor. It is an extraordinary experience. The college produces some of the best qualified people in a whole variety of maritime based industries, including maritime engineers.

The other campus is at Beauty Point, which is a few kilometres up the western side of the Tamar River. Once you have travelled through all the beautiful wine areas, you reach the lovely area of Beauty Point, and that is where the field based activities of the Australian Maritime College occur.

At the college, through these two campuses, students are provided with very flexible course options. I will stress the word 'flexible' as being not time based, or rigid, or old-fashioned learning, but flexible course options with opportunities for full-time, part-time and even online distance study. Study can be about captaining a vessel, safeguarding the marine environment, designing advanced ocean engineering structures, farming seafood or keeping the world's goods moving. These courses are all provided through the Australian Maritime College.

I am quite confident that, if we were able to have any of the staff of the Australian Maritime College here today, they would be aghast to think that people who know very, very little about the subject are actually dictating to the teachers, to the college, to the professionals, to the experts, what they should teach. Why for the life of me we would try to dictate teaching styles through a piece of legislation is beyond me. To think that at any one point in time you would dictate what the education of a particular profession should be I find quite astonishing, because education moves all the time. We have constant innovation, not only in the actual direction and delivery of education but also in the matter that needs to be covered. Teachers and the industry itself need to be the ones that determine what goes on. This is true of the Australian Maritime College as it delivers the maritime engineering courses.

The Australian Maritime College also introduces vocational certificates at many levels, bachelor degrees and diplomas, and postgraduate certificates and degrees, including doctorates. The college has an emphasis on small class sizes and very direct learning. Consequently, the graduates of the Australian Maritime College are sought after worldwide. There are alumni across 56 different countries. This is a centre of excellence that everyone here can be proud of.

We know that the sectors of offshore marine and maritime are exciting new frontiers, not just for Australia but for the whole world. We must not be using this place to try to compromise the adaptability and effectiveness of the regulatory regime for maritime safety as has been established by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority. The passage of this bill would mean that Australia would be inconsistent with the International Maritime Organization's training standards, to which we are a signatory. The most serious and immediate effect of the Marine Engineers Qualifications Bill 2013 without amendment is the potential impact on all existing qualification certificates. Due to the complex interaction with other legislation and the absence of transitional provisions, I am told that about 23,000 current qualifications would be rendered invalid. I am sure it is not the intention of my honourable colleagues opposite to render the marine industry qualifications of 23,000 people null and void. What do we have here to ensure that unqualified persons will be able to serve as seafarers? The bill does not set minimum standards and it does not prevent any reduction in those standards; it only enacts a time served approach to maritime engineering qualifications. It increases the amount of regulation on the industry, overrides the effect of three other Commonwealth acts passed unanimously by the parliament and serves to increase the costs for shipping in Australia. Why would anyone want to do this?

The core of it comes down to what we were talking about previously: a very small group—approximately 11 per cent of the maritime engineer industry—wanting to have a stranglehold on the people they think are fit to be part of their group. How many times have you heard conversations about how different royal colleges restrict numbers, whether it be in ophthalmology, obstetrics, gynaecology or general surgery? It makes it very difficult for people to enter and be one of their rank. They do it for a very clear reason, in my opinion, and that is to have a closed shop that they can manipulate for their own purposes. This is not supported by educationalists, it is not supported by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority and it is not supported by fair-minded people who recognise that educational practice has changed. It is draconian, backward and narrow.

Here we are on the second last day of the sitting of the Senate, with many important pieces of legislation we should be dealing with, and yet the valuable time of the Senate is being used in a cynical and manipulative way by members opposite. I can only say I am extremely disappointed that that is the case. We should not have to be doing this at this time. I understood that there were, in fact, other pieces of legislation to be discussed today. There has been a lot of fuss and noise in this place about guillotining debate and proper process not being followed, and yet when we do have a process agreed to, when we do have agreement amongst all people in this place that particular legislation will be debated, at the last minute a change is made, not because the legislation is considered to be extremely important, not because members opposite genuinely believe that the best interests of this country are going to be served by the passing of this legislation—no; it is cynical and, quite frankly, beneath the dignity of this place. I would not like to see this place being party to a turning back of the educational clock for any particular area, whether that is for apprentices, university graduates, teachers, doctors or anybody else. We have to move forward progressively in education in this country, not backwards. For that reason, I will not be supporting the legislation.