Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to the debate on the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Amendment Bill 2019. Labor will not oppose this amendment bill. The bill seeks to reform the operation of the Australian Skills Quality Authority, ASQA, the national VET regulator, to strengthen its powers, enhance protections for students and improve transparency to assist RTO compliance. The proposed reforms largely implement recommendations of independent reviews that have been supported by the sector.

The key amendments will impose a new condition of registration that requires RTOs to demonstrate a commitment and a capability to deliver quality VET, and to strengthen and clarify existing ASQA powers with stronger civilian penalties and powers to make directions. It will require the production of audit reports and enable public sharing of information on RTO performance to improve transparency; it will expand ASQA's scope to adopt a more educative approach to lifting quality in VET; and, finally, it will shift ASQA to a full cost-recovery model.

Stakeholders in the sector support the intention of the bill but have noted their frustrations with the lack of consultation about the legislation. There remains some uncertainty as to how many of the changes will actually work in practice. Of particular concern to Labor is ASQA moving to a minister-directed full cost-recovery model. It may mean that some providers pass the cost of ASQA services onto students. The change contradicts the recommendations of the Joyce review, which stated:

It is important that ASQA be adequately resourced to perform the guidance and educative role and to perform its role more generally. In many jurisdictions there is an understood difference between parts of the regulator’s activity that should be directly funded by the regulated through cost recovery arrangements versus what are broader activities for the 'public good', and should therefore be government funded.

The Joyce review specifically noted that ASQA should be resourced to provide broad education and guidance to the VET sector. We will monitor the ongoing adequacy of the funding of ASQA to ensure that it can perform regulatory and educative tasks. Labor has always backed, and will continue to back, a strong and comprehensive regulatory compliance and education framework for ASQA. Following the widescale rorting of the VET FEE-HELP program, ASQA's work is crucial in attempting to rid the sector of low-quality and unscrupulous providers. Labor supports a fair and considered approach to ASQA reforms. We will support changes that improve ASQA's capacity to ensure responsiveness to students, communities and employers but will reject changes that attempt to weaken ASQA's regulatory framework.

More broadly, this is just another tweak from a third-term government who simply refuse to deliver a genuine reform package that overhauls the vocational training sector. The Liberals have in fact slashed funding to TAFE and training, let apprentice numbers fall and preside over a national shortage of tradies, apprentices and trainees. More than seven years of Liberal government has left Australia facing a crisis in skills and vocational training. If the Liberals don't do something serious to fix the skills crisis that they have created, we could be looking at the extinction of Australian tradies. Under the Liberals, there are 150,000 fewer apprentices and trainees and a shortage of workers in critical services, including plumbing, carpentry, hairdressing and motor mechanics. The Liberals have cut TAFE and training by over $3 billion. The number of Australians doing an apprenticeship or traineeship is lower today than it was a decade ago. There are more people dropping out of apprenticeships and traineeships than finishing them. There has been a nearly 10 per cent increase in the number of occupations facing skills shortages. I can see you're very concerned about that, Madam Acting Deputy President Askew, and so you should be.

While the Australian Industry Group says 75 per cent of businesses surveyed are struggling to find the qualified workers they need, there are about 1.9 million Australians who are either unemployed or underemployed. We are simultaneously experiencing a crisis of youth unemployment and a crisis of skills shortages. One of these crises is bad enough, but to be faced with both at the same time is hard to imagine. But here we are confronted with both. While businesses are struggling to fill the skilled positions they have on offer, we have young people desperate for work who cannot fill those positions because they haven't been given the chance to gain the skills that the roles require. Why isn't Scott Morrison training these people for jobs in industries where there is a shortage of workers? The answer is: because the Liberals have cut funding to TAFE training. Even though this is the case, and it's plainly obvious that it is, the government refuse to properly fund the sector. They refuse to give the proper reform that is so desperately needed.

Young people have been clear about what they need. They need a skills training sector that is properly funded, properly resourced and has educators who are properly trained and able to skill them up with the pathway to meaningful employment. The government hasn't delivered on a single element of those requests. The Liberal government doesn't care enough or doesn't have the capacity to do the hard work that needs to be done to build a better post-school system. Fiddling at the edges of the current system will not address the profound problems that undermine vocational education and training and, consequently, the productive performance and international competitiveness of our economy.

Unlike Labor, the government does not understand the critical role of TAFE as the public provider, the value in skills and apprenticeships, or the value of hardworking and passionate public TAFE teachers. If we continue down this path we will severely jeopardise our future economic growth, undermine the opportunity of individual Australians to meet their full potential and—very importantly—compromise our ability as a nation to compete with the rest of the world using the skills, knowledge, discovery and invention of our people.

We know that nine out of 10 jobs created in the future will need a post-secondary school education, either TAFE or university, so we need to increase participation in both universities and our vocational education sector to make sure that our young people are prepared for the world of work, which is changing so very quickly. We need to value the role of an appropriately funded VET sector for the training, skills and apprenticeships it provides to so many Australians and its vital role in driving the economy and enhancing industry.

This third-term government simply refuses to deliver a genuine reform package that overhauls the higher education sector and that properly funds both vocational training providers and universities to deliver the services that students need. So, while Labor will not oppose the bill, we remain deeply concerned for the management of skills and vocational education under this third-term Liberal government.