Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Vanstone, the Minister representing the Minister for Vocational and Technical Education. Is the minister aware of comments on ABC Radio by Productivity Commissioner Judith Sloan that:

Migration is not a skill formation policy. You really have to think much more broadly in terms of all the incentives for Australian employers and employees to gain skills.

Given these comments, can the minister explain why the government has rebadged the New Apprenticeships Incentives Program and cut funding in net terms by $41.5 million? Can the minister also confirm that, instead of training more Australian apprentices, the government has imported an extra 270,000 permanent skilled migrants since 1996 and is handing out 100 new temporary skilled worker visas every day? Why has the government given up on training Australians and gone for the quick fix of importing workers to overcome our skills crisis—something which experts like Professor Sloan say will not work?

Amanda Vanstone (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the senator for the question. I have not seen the comments made by Professor Sloan but, in the limited context in which they have been repeated here, I think, frankly, everybody in this place would agree with them. This government does not look at immigration as being a skills fix. We look to the training of young Australians, and we certainly remember with some regret the time period of the previous government when the now Leader of the Opposition—who now says, through you, Mr President, ‘I’ll train Australians and I’ll train them now’ or ‘I’ll train them first’—was actually responsible for cutting the funding to the training of apprentices and trainees. That is, people wanting to do traditional trades and new apprenticeships had the spending on those matters cut by the now Leader of the Opposition. It is a problem for the Labor Party that they cannot do one thing in government and then in opposition say: ‘Trust us. We wouldn’t do that again.’

It was like interest rates, wasn’t it? Look what happened when the Australian public looked at the Labor party’s record on economic management, and the same will happen when the Australian public look at the Labor Party’s record on training. You cannot have 13 or 14 years in government during which you give the Australian people a recession which you say will be good for them—a recession we allegedly had to have—and then cut funding to apprenticeships and traineeships and later say: ‘Gee, if you re-elect me, I won’t do that again. Heavens no! I’ll pour money into the training system.’

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on a point of order which goes to relevance: Senator O’Brien asked a question about the government’s program and its rebadging of the New Apprenticeships scheme, and the removal of $40-odd million out of that scheme as incentives for people to train. The minister has made no attempt to answer that question. The general rave about the evils of a government of some 12 years ago is not a satisfactory answer to the question, and I urge you to exert your authority and require ministers to make some attempt at least at answering the questions.

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is a very long point of order. I hear what you say. The minister has two minutes and 11 seconds to return to her answer.

Amanda Vanstone (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. I have said enough, I think, about the well-known fact that the previous Labor government cut funding to apprenticeships and traineeships. Let us move on to this government coming into power and us experiencing some 10 years of economic growth, which of course means that your businesses are not only surviving in the economy at the time, but they have the capacity to be able to grow. For a business to be able to grow, it is not rocket science: most need to take on more skilled people. In order to get skilled people, you have to have them in the pipeline. This is the pipeline that Labor turned off, so what we are doing is using the immigration system to assist Australian businesses to grow and develop.

I was particularly interested to go back and look at a clipping in January this year where apparently the union movement were discussing with an employment agency whether it would be of interest to the union movement to bring in workers from, for example, the Philippines, and pay them at half the rate Australians are paid. Guess where the other half of the money would go? Into a union training fund! The union movement would have been able to skim some $20 million out of this fund.

As I recall, I have seen a comment by one of the senior union officials saying this was a genuine attempt to address a skills shortage in Australia. We have the union movement looking at bringing in—looking at, not agreeing to—people to work at half the going rate in Australia, and—guess what?—to take the other half into a union training fund. That is what we have the union movement doing: wanting to build a $20 million administrative fund for training to give people like Senator Wong and other union officials jobs.

Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I remind the minister that the pipeline that she was just talking about is the one that this government has been in charge of for the last decade, and so the buck stops with this government. Can the minister now explain how the decision to change the name of the New Apprenticeships scheme to Australian Apprenticeships provides any incentives for employers and employees to gain skills—something that Professor Sloan said was desperately needed? Isn’t the name change just a $24 million rebranding exercise with no benefits to business or apprentices? Wouldn’t this money have been better spent actually training more apprentices rather than printing fancy new letterhead and paying more spin doctors?

Amanda Vanstone (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator O’Brien invites me to remind him of the arrangements for who pays for what in Australia and to remind him that—

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, on a point of order. Senator O’Brien did not ask the minister to remind him. Senator O’Brien asked a serious question about a government program. You have let the minister completely avoid the primary question. I ask you to draw her to the question and to require some relevance in responses from ministers, because this has just become a complete farce.

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, I remind you of the question, and you have 49 seconds.

Amanda Vanstone (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My answer to the question is this: senators will understand—as I am sure the questioner understands—that, basically, apprenticeship and traineeship training is primarily a responsibility of the states. They have not been doing very well at it, which is why, of course, we have had to move in and do some of the work that the states in fact should have done. We have increased the number of Australians in training by 141 per cent to 389,000 since 1996, when it was 161,000. We are doing our own work to get vocational education in schools. We are providing $10.8 billion over the next four years for that and we have, of course, increased New Apprenticeships. There is no doubt we are doing our share. (Time expired)