Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to speak to the second reading of the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2006. This bill increases by $112.6 million the funding appropriated under section 18(4) of the act. The opposition supports in principle any move to address the Australian skills crisis by providing additional funding for vocational education and training, particularly in the traditional and other priority areas. For the reason of principle alone, Labor will be supporting the bill.

However, despite our commitment in principle to this provision, we have very strong reservations about the Australian technical colleges program and its capacity to address the nation’s severe shortage of skilled labour—a crisis brought about in large part by the Howard government’s 10-year neglect of training and vocational education. Accordingly, I move a second reading amendment highlighting some of our concerns:

At the end of the motion add:

“but the Senate considers that the present Government has been complacent and neglectful about the Australian economy by:

I will return to that in a moment.

The fact is that Labor’s concerns have only been exacerbated by the implications of the bill we are currently debating. We have said from the outset of this program that the Australian technical colleges represent a tokenistic stunt pulled by the government—an expensive stunt aimed at demonstrating that it has something to say about skills shortages and is doing something to respond to the desperate needs of industry. In fact, it was a hastily put together stunt pulled during the last federal election campaign. Again and again we see measures being taken by this government which are essentially quick fixes rather than looking at programs that invest in the long-term future of this country and address the long-term needs of this country. The Prime Minister is a past master at pulling these quick, dirty little stunts, and this is an example of such a measure.

While we have seen this poorly thought through election stunt, the program is experiencing a massive cost blow-out. It is experiencing a cost blow-out because essentially the program does not spend taxpayers’ money nearly as prudently or as wisely as one would expect. The Australian technical colleges, as Labor has predicted, are costing more than they should because of appalling planning by this government. This program was not developed in concert with the states and territories: it was introduced despite them; it was introduced in opposition to them. The government did not work closely with the states; it did not seek to advise the states as to what its intentions were; it did not seek to have their advice on the running of technical colleges. In fact, the government provided additional Commonwealth resources. Rather than enhancing the TAFE system that the states already run, it provided a program as a quick and dirty little stunt to try to undermine the TAFE system. The Howard government did not work with the states to add resources to the existing secondary school system that the states already run.

This government barged in and announced that what it was going to do was create a whole new system of upper secondary vocational training discrete from existing systems, essentially duplicating what had been undertaken by the states themselves. And what is the result? The result is clear to all those who know anything about this matter, and it was clear from day one. Too many of these so-called Australian technical colleges have been established incognito on greenfield sites requiring new buildings, new facilities and new equipment—things that might have been shared in a creative, innovative and economical way with existing schools and TAFE colleges.

Far from pointing to the successes of the program, as the minister would like, the cost blow-outs clearly show that the Australian technical colleges concept was seriously flawed from the beginning. The minister has had to come begging to the parliament to save her bacon by appropriating well over another $100 million to cover the unexpected additional costs. The government could not find anyone willing to negotiate the contracts to run these colleges at anything approaching the prices that were initially offered. All around the country the government has had to increase the contract price—it has no choice. Now, of course, the taxpayers have to foot the bill. They have to underwrite the government’s mismanagement.

For instance, take the case of the technical college at Lismore-Ballina. The program was a 2004 election promise. It is now 2007 and that college has yet to get off the ground. There has been no contract signed, as we were told at Senate estimates less than two weeks ago. The New South Wales government has gone ahead to establish its own network of trade schools, on its own initiative, to address the skills crisis. The New South Wales government has opened its own trade school at Ballina based on the local high school. Of course, that is a sensible, cost-effective way of doing it. The state government is building on existing facilities, existing administration and existing resources to create a practical solution to the skills shortage crisis. Now it is offering young Australians at Ballina and in surrounding areas new opportunities to learn a trade. There has not been a fuss about this initiative, just purposeful action. Nothing could contrast further with the actions of the Commonwealth government on this matter.

It would be nice if the Howard government could learn from the example of New South Wales or, indeed, my own state of Victoria, which has introduced similar initiatives. I wonder whether the New South Wales government’s new trade school at Ballina has anything to do with the apparent inability of the Commonwealth to interest anyone in setting up an Australia technical college in exactly the same town. Maybe local industry is not happy with the new trade school that the government is proposing; just maybe the ATC will wastefully and unnecessarily duplicate the existing educational facilities at that centre.

That is not all that I am worried about with regard to this program. Instead of the grandstanding that this government has engaged in while setting up its own colleges unilaterally, if the Howard government had chosen to work with the states in a genuine attempt to solve the skills crisis we might now have a viable, effective program in operation. Australia sorely needs a solution to the skills crisis, but it will not find one with this government. The Australian technical colleges are clearly not part of that solution.

The government wants to tell us that this extra cash proves that the Australian technical colleges program is going ahead in leaps and bounds. What we need, of course, is to look at the enrolments at some of these new colleges to get a taste of the truth. They point not to success but to abject failure by this government. An article by the Illawarra Mercury published early this month reported that a week after the Australian technical college in Wollongong was due to open it had 38 students. The Australian technical college at Gladstone in Queensland had 30 students last year.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How many?

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thirty students. Of course, we were told that there were going to be students coming from every quarter. Now we are told that by 2009 there might be 135 at Gladstone. The college at Darwin is not expected to grow beyond a paltry 100 students. When state school enrolments fall that low, state governments will usually close the schools down on the basis that they represent an inefficient use of taxpayers’ money. But, when it indulges in a cheap and nasty political stunt, what does this government do? It puts in another $100 million. The idea of deliberately setting up new training facilities with such poor economies of scale ought to be anathema to this entire parliament. But the financial considerations cannot be allowed to stand in the way of this Howard government’s election stunts.

Debate interrupted.