Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Amendment Bill 2019. This bill seeks to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Australian Skills Quality Authority, known as ASQA, without significantly increasing the regulatory burden on prospective or current registered training organisations. A more efficient and effective assessment of our vocational education and training sector will ensure higher standards and better prepare those who undertake vocational training for their future endeavours.

The genesis of this change comes from two independent reviews: Professor Valerie Braithwaite's All eyes on quality review of the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Act 2011 and Strengthening skills: expert review of Australia’s vocational education and training system, by the Hon. Steven Joyce. These changes are part of the government's $18.1 million commitment to support and reform the national VET regulator, including improving engagement with the sector, ensuring that its regulatory approach is more effective, and ensuring better outcomes for students.

The bill includes a number of provisions to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of regulation in the sector, and I'm proud to be part of a government that has such a strong focus on ensuring that our vocational education system is robust and student-focused. This bill will strengthen registration requirements for the sector by requiring training organisations to demonstrate commitment and capability to deliver quality training. This will ensure that enrolling students are confident in the education they are enrolling to receive.

Further, this bill will clarify that standards in relation to VET accredited courses are ongoing standards and that these standards must be met throughout the entirety of registration. This will ensure that standards do not slip after initial registration while ensuring that the overall regulatory requirements are not onerous or burdensome. Electronic data sharing will be facilitated with prescribed bodies, making it easier for students to move courses and to pick up where they left off if life gets in the way of their studies. Further to this, data sharing between ASQA, tuition assurance scheme operators and the National Centre for Vocational Education Research will be streamlined. This is going to reduce double handling and make the whole system more efficient. This in turn will mean that TAFEs and vocational education providers can spend more time focusing on students and less time on red tape compliance and data management. This is something that all stakeholders have been calling for. It will ensure that provisions in relation to written undertakings given to ASQA by registered training organisations are clarified so that they can apply to all requirements of the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Act.

Further, the bill will, importantly, provide the minister with the power to issue a direction to the regulator regarding the performance of its functions and exercise of its powers. This will ensure that the buck stops with the minister and that the minister has the power to intervene should things get out of hand or require intervention. It also provides a way, if necessary, to ensure that directives are carried out without being held up by step-by-step regulations. The bill also contains technical amendments that will streamline arrangements for commissioners and modernise corporate reporting requirements. This will bring the sector into line with expectations and allow it to be more responsive, adaptable and innovative.

The bill will also enable the Secretary of the Department of Education, Skills and Employment to release information to the public about training by registered training organisations and the outcomes and experiences of students attending registered training organisations. Feedback from employers of different RTOs will also be released. This will ensure full sector transparency and will allow prospective students to be fully informed about the quality of education they are likely to receive. Feedback from employers will be particularly useful, as the end goal of training should be to gain meaningful and rewarding employment.

The bill will also increase transparency of audit outcomes through the public release of audit reports by the regulator. This, again, will increase transparency and allow students and trainees to make an informed decision in relation to the training they undertake. These changes will act as a kind of market mechanism, weeding out underperforming and poorly run RTOs, and will ensure that new providers are not entering a market that is a certificate farm and that sees students more as a cash cow.

We are working on and fixing Labor's failed VET FEE-HELP scheme. Since 2016, over 66,500 students have had VET FEE-HELP loan debts of over $1 billion re-credited by the Commonwealth. Under Labor's disastrous VET FEE-HELP scheme, dodgy providers flourished and students were systematically exploited. They signed up and accumulated huge debts for training packages that were never delivered.

Some stakeholders have raised the potential for ASQA's release of audit papers to have a negative impact on the sector and have queried whether they're suitable for the public domain. So, through earlier consultations with the states and territories on this matter, care has been taken in this bill by this government to ensure that ASQA is not immediately required to publish audit reports once the amendments in the bills commence. Although more transparency is always a good thing, with the introduction of this legislation we do not want to see a rush to drastic reform and risk leaving behind or disadvantaging any providers. The government will work with stakeholders to identify appropriate information to include in published reports and will ensure that audit reports will not be published until after this consultation phase.

In October 2019, the government announced a rapid review of the Australian Skills Quality Authority, with a focus on the regulator's governance, policies and culture. This is complementary to these proposed legislative changes. The review is due for completion in March this year and will inform an ongoing program of reform to enhance ASQA's educative role and quality improvement approach. This will continue to support effective, modern regulation into the future, and the government will ensure that we have further announcements on the reform of ASQA in the future.

Further, some stakeholders have raised concerns that the amendments allowed for RTOs' registration to be cancelled with immediate effect. I want to put those concerns to rest, because this is not correct. The amendments in this bill do not change the natural justice requirements in the existing National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Act. These provisions provide certainty to RTOs by guaranteeing that providers are notified of ASQA's intention to cancel, and provide time for RTOs to respond to the notice. The amendments provide ASQA with flexibility and discretion in determining when cancellation takes effect. This is designed so as to minimise the impact on students. The last thing we want to see is students leaving part-way through a course and being left high and dry, with no benefit from their investment. For example, it may be appropriate to allow a provider to continue operating for a period while its enrolled students complete their training, or to arrange for them to transfer to another training provider with full course carry-over credits.

This government is committed to the vocational education sector. We are a party that wants to see people get ahead—the quiet, aspirational Australians. We want to give them the opportunity to do that. Nothing says 'aspiration' more than investing in yourself through education. In the financial year 2019-20, we are investing over $3 billion in vocational education and training. This includes $1.5 billion given to the states and territories every year through the National Agreement for Skills and Workforce Development. We are spending $1.5 billion to fund the government's own skills programs, including employer initiatives and support for apprentices, with a particular focus on regional employment, and $175 million is going to the states and territories via the Skilling Australians Fund, to support increased apprenticeships and traineeship numbers, again with a focus on regional employment.

We are the party of education, at all levels. We have introduced VET student loans so that students can access financial support in order to gain their qualifications, safe in the knowledge that they will not be ripped off. This amendment seeks to continue to strengthen the sector. I look forward to voting for this amendment and I commend it to the Senate.