Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I stand here in what is the most diverse parliament that Australia has ever seen, and that makes me so proud. I also wish to take this opportunity to pay my deep and abiding respects to the First Nations people of Australia. This is a parliament that is beginning to look more like the Australia that we purport to represent, and that makes me very proud—proud of an Albanese Labor government for its approach of progressive, consultative and respectful engagement in running this parliament.

With the strong agenda that we intend to deliver—a strong agenda that includes strengthening our health care, improving aged care, delivering on a First Nations voice to parliament, a strong and transparent national anticorruption commission, action on climate change and so much more—we are a government committed to workers' rights in all forms. We're investing in creating jobs, in creating educational opportunities and in protecting workers' rights. We will start that with Jobs and Skills Australia. We've committed to the creation of this independent body, and it will tackle the current skills shortages and get more people into meaningful work. We've committed to a range of educational policies that will drive that. We will target the current skills shortage and promote educational opportunities, and that includes fee-free TAFE.

It is not exclusively about having a job but also about fostering safe workplaces and enabling new investment and new development to build our economy and provide more and better opportunities. This is why we have a range of policies that will deliver on that to help strengthen workers' rights, including 10 days paid domestic violence leave, enshrining job security in our legislation and making wage theft illegal.

The Albanese government is committed to creating jobs. While we are currently experiencing a skills shortage, we are also in a situation where we have 1.3 million people unemployed or underemployed and many more struggling on low wages and in insecure work. A skills focus is essential to the wellbeing of Australians in our economy. We must address the disconnect between unemployment and the skills shortage, and that's exactly what we intend to do.

To appropriately deliver on this, it is essential that we get a better understanding of the skills we require to drive our national skills policy and our industry development. We will take immediate action to address the skills crisis affecting our workforce. The Jobs and Skills Summit on 1 September is the first major step. There are various consultations to shape that summit, and that summit will come up with immediate actions, mid-term actions, and a longer term plan.

We have a plan to create and strengthen the workforce, and Skills and Jobs Australia is a central part of that. It is an independent agency that will engage with state and territory governments, as well as industry, unions, training providers and employers. We will not be excluding anyone. We will not be preferencing anyone. We will be consulting with all of those interested groups that can help build a stronger future.

This will operate as a genuine partnership, foster discussion and ensure that we have a shared understanding of the issues, not just of today but of the emerging issues for our workforce. It will work to investigate the adequacy of our vocational training system and address those skills shortages in conjunction with the available training across the country.

As I travel around my home state of South Australia and meet with training providers, TAFEs, universities and employers, I hear about opportunities and initiatives that have languished. Our plan will change that. We will drive change to connect those together. We will work to ensure that Australia's training systems will deliver on the skills necessary for workers and provide them with job opportunities.

It is clear that, through our commitment to Jobs and Skills Australia, an Albanese Labor government is dedicated to creating educational opportunities. We know that one of the biggest factors in our skills make up is how many Australians we educate and provide opportunities, and that our education system is not exclusive.

We have also committed to introducing fee-free TAFE. So, if you're looking for training, your current income, or lack of it, will not influence that; you will be able to access training and build your career. There will be 465,000 fee-free TAFE places for Australian students. They will be predominantly reserved for those industries of national importance, industries that are impacted by COVID-19, industries that are facing skills shortages and industries that are going to shape the future of this country and our economic prosperity.

We will also increase university places. There will be up to 20,000 university places in areas such as engineering, nursing, technology and teaching. These commitments will help to build a bigger workforce and create educational opportunities. We know that urgent action is required, and we will deliver. These initiatives contribute directly to our plans for a future made in Australia. We will provide up to $15 billion of capital to invest in job-creating projects through the National Reconstruction Fund.

We have opportunities in Australia that are vast. We can build the strongest renewable energy sector. We can revise our entire energy system to be better, cheaper, and more efficient and drive industry development because of the efficiency and effectiveness of that energy system. We will maximise the use of Australian goods made here. We will rebuild our proud manufacturing industry. We will support new and emerging industries and commercialise innovation and technology. We will supercharge national productivity and fix the NBN.

There are so many initiatives; we need to ensure a comprehensive approach. So, while we are building the skills system and investing in the industries, the employment opportunities and the businesses of the future, we will also be delivering on cheaper child care and creating a skills culture that will build us into the future.

In addition to that, we need to improve our workplace culture. We cannot just focus on building the skills; we have to focus on the culture as well. As I have said, I'm very proud to be part of an Albanese government that is dedicated to workers rights in all forms. Creating safe workplaces and helping to provide protection for workers will improve the quality of jobs in our country. All workers in Australia deserve the right to be safe at work. They all deserve the right to be safe at home and they should never have to choose between their safety and their income. This will be addressed through a range of commitments, one of which is introducing 10 days domestic violence leave. In this country, one in four women over 15 has experienced domestic violence by an intimate partner. On average, one woman is killed by her partner or former partner every 10 days in Australia. Paid leave is absolutely essential to help these women leave violent relationships, access critical services and look to the future. Our commitment to paid family and domestic violence leave will give workers the means to escape these circumstances without sacrificing or risking their job or an opportunity for an income. Leave is particularly necessary for casual employees, who are even more marginalised in these circumstances. Nobody should be put in that kind of precarious situation. Nobody should have to choose between being safe and an income. This is key to economic equality.

Other measures that we intend to pursue and to deliver on include the 'same job, same pay' commitment, which outlines that, if you do the same job as somebody else, you should be paid the same amount of money. Around Australia we have worksites where workers do the same job, with the same hours and the same conditions, but they get paid less. That's got to stop. We also have a commitment to tackling insecure work, with a particular focus on the gig economy and short-term contracts. We will ensure that job security is at the heart of decision-making and we will ensure that wage theft is made a crime at the national level. Wage theft currently rips off more than $1 billion from Australian workers each year. This has got to stop, and we intend to stop it.

It is clear, I believe, that the Albanese Labor government is committed to workers' rights in all forms. We respect all workers and we will work to protect all workers. We have a comprehensive plan to tackle Australia's skills shortage and we will do that through a range of measures, including the Jobs and Skills Australia plans. We will invest in fee-free TAFE and increase university places to help create job opportunities and address training shortages in those vital industries that are going to build a stronger future, both economically and socially and in every single workplace across the country. We will rebuild our proud manufacturing industry. It is an area that has suffered so much but gives us so many opportunities, not just to make things at home, not just to build our own sovereign resilience, but for export purposes and to build an economy that we can all be proud of. We will protect workers—overwhelmingly women—experiencing family and domestic violence. We will protect them from having to choose between their safety and their income. We will protect vulnerable workers by tackling insecure work and wage theft.

In short, we intend to build our future on respect and on fairness and on a shared opportunity. As I travel around South Australia, I see so many opportunities, particularly at the moment in the hydrogen industry, where we will start to see the fruits of the work of the South Australian government supported by the plans of the Albanese Labor government to develop a hydrogen industry that we can all be proud of. The interest in this was proven in a recent call for expressions of interest put out by the South Australian government which resulted in over 60 businesses putting in an expression of interest to be part of that hydrogen future. It is an exciting time, and I know that the South Australian government is bolstered by now having a federal government who will commit to these important industries that not only help us build our future economically but help us address climate change and help us build an industry that is cleaner, that is more effective and that provides more jobs into the future.