Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before time ran out last night, I was lamenting the fact that a succession of Labor state governments around Australia had abolished the old technical colleges in the 1980s. This reflected the educational fad of the time that everyone should complete year 12 and go to university. The view then was that you were a failure if you had not completed year 12 and gone to university. The coalition wants to see trades restored to their rightful place as an educational option as valid as a university degree.

I mentioned last night that we had the spectacle in this chamber of Senator Carr trying to mount an attack on the technical colleges—and it was an extraordinary sight. But what was Senator Carr’s knockout punch? What was Senator Carr’s killer political point on technical colleges? It was that the government did not consult the states on the establishment of technical colleges, that it was our job to consult on the establishment of tech colleges with those states that had closed the old tech schools and that it was our job to discuss with the states that had totally abrogated their responsibilities how we were going to do their job for them. It was a perverse sort of logic. The truth is that successive state Labor governments turned their backs on technical and further education. They sent young people the message: if you have not completed year 12 and university, you are a failure. They systematically stigmatised the traditional trades.

The establishment of these Australian technical colleges has been remarkable. These colleges are being delivered ahead of schedule. But what do we see from Labor? They are walking both sides of the street again. The member for Melbourne said in November last year, and got it absolutely right:

... we’ve managed to alienate countless young people from learning through an excessive focus on university entrance in schools.

He agrees with us that this country has placed too much emphasis on university degrees as the only worthy pathway of further education. That is why this government is establishing these Australian technical colleges, because we want to affirm the choice that many Australians want to take to study a trade. Lynne Kosky, the former Victorian minister for education, also admitted last year that the previous approach was wrong. She said:

It’s probably true to say that we lost something when technical schools were closed previously ... We lost something that was important for young people.

She was dead right.

Labor do not like these technical colleges. It is typical of their approach that they say that they support something but then they oppose every single measure that can help deliver it. They say that they support the trades and that they support skills but they oppose measures like the Australian technical colleges which can do something to help see those skills come to fruition. Likewise, Labor say we need to address our skills shortage, but when the government puts in place a comprehensive set of solutions, including these tech colleges and the $837 million Skills for the Future package, all they do is oppose us. If Australians want to know the truth about Labor, they should look at their record and at what they did in government and have done in opposition. The refrain is as true as ever it was: do not listen to what Labor say; look at what Labor do.

The new shadow education minister, Mr Smith, has made crystal clear what he really thinks about Australian technical colleges. He stated that his intention, if elected to government, would be to fold the Australian technical colleges back into the TAFE system of the states. The Labor Party want to resurrect failed policies. We all know what would happen if these tech colleges were handed to the states. Labor’s position is: the states closed the technical colleges, the coalition stepped in to fill the gap by creating new technical colleges, so let us hand the technical colleges back to the states that closed the tech colleges in the first place. What would the states do if these tech colleges were handed to them? We can only assume that they would close them as they did with their own tech colleges. As any good psychologist will tell you, the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. If Labor pass these tech colleges to the states to run, the states will close them, because they have an aversion to this sort of choice and opportunity. These great institutions which we have established would be lost under Labor. We would lose the collaborative approach which now exists in these technical colleges between students and employers, where employers are allowed to influence the curriculum to ensure skills are tailored to meet the needs of the local region.

Labor have had nearly 11 years to come up with a comprehensive technical and further education policy. We know the Labor Party do not actually have policies anymore; they just have directions papers, which are just a series of motherhood statements, bereft of detail. In Mr Rudd’s and Mr Smith’s direction paper called ‘Education revolution’ you might expect to find at least a comprehensive discussion of technical and further education. This document is not policy, but it is something, you would expect. But how much of this 27-page document is dedicated to fixing our skills crisis? Twenty pages? No. Ten pages? No.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One?

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, Senator McGauran, not even a full page; it is a mere four paragraphs. It is a feeble effort. After 11 years in opposition, there are four paragraphs. In contrast, this government is delivering on its promise to the Australian people. We are establishing 25 Australian technical colleges. The ability to establish these colleges is only made possible because we have a strong and growing economy and because we have managed our finances well. It is only because we have been able to deliver nine budget surpluses. It is only because the coalition has been able to repay every single cent of Labor’s $96 billion debt. We are investing in education now because we have the capacity to do so. We have the economic environment which allows us to do these things for the Australian people. We used to have to find $9 billion per year just to pay the interest on Labor’s debt. That is one of the reasons why we can afford these tech colleges—because we do not have to find $9 billion every year just to pay Labor’s debt.

This is the clear difference between the coalition and Labor. On this side, we support choice and we support flexibility in education. We have a clear desire on this side of the chamber to reinstate the status of trade qualifications to their rightful place alongside university degrees. We want to give choice and opportunity to young Australians, and Australian technical colleges will do just that.

George Campbell (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2006 provides an increase in funding of $112 million over the next three years. Labor has supported funding continuously to enhance our vocational education and training skills and will reluctantly support this bill. I say ‘reluctantly’ because this is one of the poorest policy options we have seen introduced in this parliament. It is a policy option that has done nothing and will do nothing to contribute to dealing with the massive skills shortage that we face in this country.

This could and should have been achieved by funding the TAFE sector and expanding its capacity to train greater numbers of apprentices. This government has failed abysmally to address the skills shortages in this country. The Prime Minister announced that ‘boosting the esteem and prestige of technical and further education’ would be a key goal if he were to win another term in office. He has had four terms. He has suddenly woken up to the fact that in the next term he should boost spending on technical and further education. Where has he been for the past 11 years? Where was he in 1995 before he came into office—where was the policy then? I will come to what the policy of this government was in respect of technical and further education in a minute. He went on to say:

I still remain very committed to boosting the esteem and prestige of technical and further education in this country. I think we did make a terrible mistake a generation ago on this, but the Australian technical colleges are a good start.

The Prime Minister said it; I did not say it. He said, ‘I think we did make a terrible mistake a generation ago on this, but the Australian technical colleges are a good start.’ They are not even a drop in the ocean.

Mr Robb in the other place yesterday said that in coming years more than 60 per cent of jobs would require vocational and technical qualifications, yet only 30 per cent of the working population had those qualifications. He then sought in his answer to put the blame on the former Labor government. We have been out of office for 11 years, but they blame the former Labor government for the problem. What absolute rot! This government has had 11 years to address this problem and has done nothing. They made the announcement back in 2004 to introduce 25 technical colleges. How many are up and running?

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Twenty!

George Campbell (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think about five—nowhere near 20, Senator McGauran. But as usual you open your mouth and all sorts of dribble falls out. They have had nearly three years since re-election to get these ATCs up and running, and that has been an absolute policy failure. But how typical is the response of the government? If they introduce something and it works, they accept the responsibility for it. If they introduce something and it does not work, they shift the blame back onto the Labor government—sometimes back as far as the early eighties. It is absolute nonsense. You have been here long enough to be able to take the blame for everything that happens in this country in the current time, for which you are responsible.

The reality is that the Howard government cannot escape its responsibility for the current skills shortages. You failed to identify the crisis early enough, despite the fact that as early as 2003 the Senate Employment, Workplace Relations and Education References Committee produced a report called Bridging the skills divide. We identified some 52 recommendations on issues that needed to be addressed if we were going to urgently deal with the skills crisis—and you ignored it. You ignored all of the recommendations. You also failed to provide essential opportunities for Australians to access vocational education and training.

And what did you do when you came into office in 1996? What was one of the first acts of this government? To slice $240 million out of the TAFE sector—out of vocational education and training. It was one of your first acts in 1996. The lack of investment and the fact that that money was cut out of the system has seen something like 325,000 young people turned away from the TAFE system since you came to office. These young people have been denied an opportunity to get a technical education to be able to get into a trade and set themselves up for a proper and rewarding future. At the same time we have imported something like 300,000 skilled migrants. In fact, Australia is the only developed country to reduce public investment in vocational institutions and universities. According to the OECD, our public investment in education has fallen eight per cent since 1995. The OECD average is a 38 per cent increase. So, while other OECD countries have been increasing their expenditure on education, whether vocational or tertiary, what have we been doing? We have been cutting back: an eight per cent decrease against the 38 per cent increase for the rest of the OECD, and we are well behind in all of the international benchmarks.

Dr Peter Kell, from Wollongong university, has said:

A skills shortage is no accident when you underinvest for 10 years.

The numbers do not paint a pretty picture. The latest skills vacancy index produced by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations shows that vacancies continue to rise. From February 2006 to February 2007, skilled vacancies rose by six per cent—in the automotive trades they rose by six per cent, in the food trades they rose by 21 per cent, in printing they rose by 36 per cent and in the wood and textile trades they rose by 49 per cent.

The Australian Industry Group, or AiG, estimates the shortage of skilled labourers will be in the order of 100,000 by 2010. So we will be short of 100,000 tradespeople before even one tradesperson comes out of the Australian technical colleges. Even with this additional funding, these colleges will at best train a maximum of 7,500 tradespeople, who will not begin to graduate until between 2010 and 2012. The colleges will not deliver one single tradesperson until 2010. That is simply not good enough. It is simply not good enough when you know that we had an infrastructure in place in this country through the TAFE sector that was working collaboratively with the private sector—and I will come to a couple of examples of that in a minute—that could have been boosted and utilised and could have readily dealt with the skills shortages in an immediate sense. If resources had been put into that sector of the economy, then we would have many more thousands of tradespeople out amongst the industry now then we currently have. The ATCs are, at the very best, a case of too little too late.

Way back in 2003, in the Bridging the skills divide report, we provided the government with a set of sensible recommendations. Most of the recommendations were supported by both sides of the parliament. I think there might have been a reservation on one or two by some of the coalition senators, but in the main the report had the unanimous support of the committee. Recommendation 34 really was a pointer to what could have been achieved effectively at that time to deal with the skills issue. Recommendation 34 was that the government should consider the broader role that skills centres can play in delivering and boosting the number of skilled workers in our community. I have been to some of these skills centres and they are fantastic. The great irony is that two of the best in the country are in the electorate of the ex-minister. I do not think the ex-minister actually walked from his office around the corner to look at them or pay them a visit, because, if he had, that is the route he would have taken in dealing with the skills crisis. He would not have wasted his time trying to build something from the ground up that was going to take so long to put in place.

The Construction Skills Trade Centre in Brisbane is a terrific facility. It is supported by the Building and Construction Industry Training Fund in Queensland, the Queensland Construction Training Fund, the Building Employees Redundancy Trust, the Queensland Department of Employment and Training and the Queensland Department of Employment and Industrial Relations. Here is a great example of a collaborative effort between the private sector—that is, the building industry employers—and the TAFE sector. The TAFE college is actually located on the site where the skills centre is located, and it trains all of the apprentices for the building industry, whether they be bricklayers, carpenters, plumbers or whatever. But they go beyond that: they even train the independent contractors in how to run their businesses. They are operating an enormous facility which is servicing the skills needs of the construction industry in that area. And, as I said, it happens to be in the former minister’s electorate. Another body in the same electorate is Queensland TAFE’s terrific Skills Tech campus at Sunnybank. Skills Tech will be accommodating more than 11,000 students by the time the first tradesperson comes out of an ATC. That is all from one centre—because they built on the existing resources that are already located in the TAFE sector. They will have 11,000 students, almost double what we will get out of 25 ATCs.

This is a practical solution by the Queensland government, building on existing infrastructure. Unlike the federal government, they recognise what has worked and they built it. As I said, Minister Hardgrave could not even look around the corner from his electoral office to learn from the facilities that were there. If he had looked, that is the route he would have taken. When you see those facilities, compared to the mess of the ATCs, you can understand why Gary Hardgrave was sacked as a minister and is now sitting on the back bench of the House of Representatives. That is a reflection of the failure of the government’s policy in this area.

Another facility is the Hunter Valley Training Company. They have something like 1,300 apprentices on their books. They have links to 800 companies in the region. They have a completion rate for their apprentices of 70 to 75 per cent, while the latest NCVER report shows the national average running at just 45 per cent. They are another collaborative operation between industry and unions and are getting results in the field. But they were also ignored. That specific example was also ignored. It was treated as though it did not exist. The view was that you had to build on a greenfield site.

Australian technical colleges were the most wasteful and inefficient solution that the Howard government could have dreamt up. The original proposal for the ATCs committed $289 million over the first three years. It was meant to deliver 25 colleges in areas of acute skills shortages with large youth populations. By the end of last year they had spent only $53.5 million and only five colleges were open, and at those colleges only 305 students were enrolled. One hundred and eighty of those students were enrolled at the Port Macquarie ATC before it became an ATC. So they were existing students at another facility that was given the title of ATC.

Let us look at what else the government have spent some of the cash on. They spent $20 million on advertising the ATCs. That $20 million could have trained 5,000 apprentice carpenters. They are also spending $24 million on changing the name of the failed New Apprenticeships program to Australian Apprenticeships—a really terrific policy announcement! That equates to another 6,000 apprentices that could have been trained in the field. So that is 11,000 apprentices they could have trained with the money they spent on advertising the existing system. Instead of consulting with states and industry, the government simply decided to go it alone. They announced the ATCs as a quick political fix, they established them outside the existing framework, they duplicated the TAFE infrastructure and they undermined the existing TAFE structure.

The increase of $112 million is a significant cost blow-out. During the last election campaign the Prime Minister announced: ‘The technical colleges are the centrepiece of our drive to tackle skills shortages and to revolutionise vocational education and training throughout Australia.’ Revolutionise it—well, they have certainly done that. They have demonstrated what a policy failure they are and how bereft the government are of any ideas for dealing with the challenges that this country currently faces.

Your answer to dealing with the skills shortages has been nothing short of a disaster and a monumental failure, and now you are demanding another $112 million of taxpayers’ money to put into this failed policy initiative. This brings the total to $456 million, and what is there to show for it? Virtually nothing: 300 young people being trained at five colleges right across the country. That would not even scratch the surface of the problem. That almost half a billion dollars could have been spent on improving and enhancing the existing VET framework, which would have been able to generate additional tradespeople relatively quickly within the existing structure. That is nearly 500 million wasted opportunities in schools, TAFE and industry partnerships.

It is time this government went. The lacklustre enrolments and delays in implementation show this policy for what it is: a political fix to a crucial issue of public policy. The estimated skills shortage by 2010 will be in the order of 100,000 people, according to the AiG, and these colleges, even with the existing funding, will at best train a maximum of 7,500 people. The political fix was announced in 2004, but we know that it will not deliver a single tradesperson until at least 2010. That is simply not good enough. It has done nothing to deal with what is a crucial issue for this country.

We have seen the government having to rely on importation of skilled labour through their temporary 457 visas and other mechanisms to try and deal with the skills shortage. You can deal with it in the short term in that way, but over the longer term it will simply bounce back and bite you. Labor does have positive policies to help overcome our nation’s skills crisis. We know that Australia’s economic prosperity cannot continue without extensive investment in the vocational education and training system. We need a systematic approach. Labor recognises the need for cooperation between the federal government and the states and territories. We also recognise the need to consult with industry to determine our skills needs for the future. Labor has always been and will continue to be committed to real investment in the vocational education and training sector. Our commitment to education at all levels has never wavered. Australia needs to be prepared for the challenges of the future. (Time expired)

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Here is a really good news story: additional money being appropriated by this parliament for a program that has exceeded even the government’s expectations in its success. What do we get from the party that represents union bosses? Just criticism. If anyone was listening to the former speaker, I urge them to take with a very great deal of caution the statistics which he threw about. Some of the statistics used by the previous speaker just do not stand warranty. I know my colleague Senator McGauran, who will be participating in the debate later, will give some facts about that. I will give some facts from my experience at the new ATC in Townsville, which indicate that the previous speaker’s conclusions and figures are simply figments of his imagination and of the imagination of the party that represents union bosses in this parliament.

Senator George Campbell mentioned that $240 million had been slashed from the training budget when this government took office. I would not concede that that is correct, but there were many government programs that were looked at very carefully when this government came to power. Why was that so? Because this government had to find something in the order of $10 billion to fill up a black hole that the Labor Party had created and kept secret from the Australian public. This opposition represented union bosses in the previous parliament and, in a very skilful way, hid from the parliament and from the Australian public the fact that there was a $10 billion black hole in the budget. When a new government came to power, the first thing we had to do was fix that $10 billion black hole. That required some pruning and some careful consideration of some of the wasteful programs that had been adopted by the previous Labor government, and we had to save that money to get the books back in order. Once we had fixed up the $10 billion black hole of the previous government, we then had to address the $96 billion of borrowings by the previous government which were taking Australia down.

Senator George Campbell mentioned that vacancies for skilled labour have increased by six per cent in recent times. I am sure that statistic is correct, but why is it so? It is because the Australian economy is experiencing unprecedented growth that does not come just by a quirk of nature. It comes by the very careful management by this government and by our Treasurer, Peter Costello, over 10 years. Our government has done an enormous amount of difficult work to get our economy where it is. The economy is where it is at the moment because of the skill of Liberal and National Party governments and because of the work of the Treasurer, Mr Costello, and of the whole government.

We are experiencing very significant positives at this time. Of course there are vacancies in the skills area; there are vacancies everywhere, which is quite unlike the last time that the Labor Party was in power. Senator George Campbell at that time was a union heavyweight—a man whom, if I recall correctly, even the former Labor Prime Minister described as having the jobs of 100,000 fellow Australians on his conscience. Senator Campbell now has the hide to criticise our government for the vacancies we have created—for the enormous number of jobs we have created—in the past 10 years. When Labor left office, the unemployment rate was around 12 per cent. It had been in that order for most of the time of the Labor administration—for most of those hard 13 years.

It was a Labor administration that had a history of claiming to look after the workers of our country. Twelve per cent of the workers of our country found themselves without jobs during the time of the Labor government. It became quite clear that the previous Labor government was not a government for workers; it was a government for union bosses and for all the rorts and privileges that the unions and their bosses achieved for themselves at that time. It is no criticism but simply a statement of fact that if you look in this chamber, for example, a good 80 per cent of those who sit opposite have come to this chamber through the union movement as union bosses, as people who have taken advantage of union fees to get their places here.

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

You are a fair dinkum tosser.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I understand that the workers of Australia—and you might correct me if I am wrong, Senator Sterle—

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

Senator Sterle interjecting—

Ross Lightfoot (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Sterle, you will come to order!

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

are being levied an extra $30 million to fight the Labor Party campaign, because the unions have no confidence in the Labor Party administration, and well can I understand that. The workers of Australia are being levied these additional funds, not for their own benefit but to run a political campaign to get more union hacks like Senator Sterle into this parliament, and that is the sort of opposition we have here—an alternative government that is interested in unions and union bosses, not in the workers.

Again I emphasise that when we took power 12 per cent of the workers that the Labor Party is supposed to represent were unemployed. Under this government those unemployment figures have been slashed to a stage where we now have almost full employment. We have vacancies in every field because the economy is going gang busters. It is going gang busters because of the work of Peter Costello and this government in the last 10 years. That work has allowed us to pay off Labor’s $10 billion black hole and to pay off the debt of $96 billion that the Labor Party ran up when it was in government. To have the previous speaker come into this chamber and blame this government for slicing some programs in 1996 is just hypocrisy in its highest form.

As I said, this is a good news story, but all we get from the party for the unionist leaders is criticism, nitpicking and more criticism. If they looked at the facts, they would understand that the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2006 before us today demonstrates very clearly the success of the Australian technical colleges program and it reflects, as I say, the better than we even expected progress that has been achieved to date in implementing this Howard government initiative.

Twenty-four of the 25 Australian technical colleges have now been announced and 20 of these have already signed funding agreements with the government ensuring funding for their establishment and operations until the end of 2009. At least 21 of these colleges will be in operation during 2007 with a forecast of more than 2,000 students. This whole initiative has been implemented well ahead of the schedule which we announced in the 2004 election when we announced this initiative.

The Australian technical colleges have been embraced by communities and by employers in the industry in the regions where they have been established. I know in my own bailiwick, in North Queensland, the Australian technical colleges are doing very well. The college in Townsville was funded for 100 places. They already have 150 students enrolled and they have been funded for that. I certainly hope that the government will understand the fact that there are more people waiting for the Townsville ATC and I would hope that the department will seriously look at the request of the Townsville ATC for additional funds to take up that very significant demand in the community.

The Townsville Australian technical college is very well chaired by Mr John Bearne, with Mr Lawrie Martin as his deputy chairman. Their board of experienced people in the industry, who understand what is needed in Townsville, are doing an absolutely mighty job, as are the boards of ATCs right around the country. One of the reasons for this is that the boards guiding these Australian technical colleges are made up of local people in the industry who know the demand. No one Australian technical college in Australia will be the same as any other; they will all be different because they will have different focuses.

One of the very great successes of the Australian technical college program is demonstrated in Townsville where industry and employers are wholeheartedly in favour and supportive of what the ATC is doing. As I understand it, when a trainee comes into the ATC they have to have a mentor or an employer who can help them through and who can work with them. In Townsville, it is interesting that there are more employers wanting to help, assist and take on trainees than there are trainees. That demonstrates not only the success of the program but the fact that industry understands it, supports it, thinks it is a great idea and are prepared to vote with their feet when it comes to this college, by offering their services. So perhaps that is something unique to Townsville that is not there in other ATC areas, but we are very proud of the fact that there are more employers wanting to be involved than we have trainees. So it is a great program.

Other communities want to join the Australian technical colleges program. I was out at Mount Isa opening an employment expo that Centrelink and other government agencies had put on a few months ago. These employment expos, bringing job seekers and employers together, are a great initiative of the Minister for Human Services. It was a very significant event in Mount Isa, it was the first in Australia, as I understand it, and I was very proud to be able to open it on behalf of the minister. But one of the calls in Mount Isa was for their own ATC. That is not possible at the present time, but I do know that the Townsville ATC and others in government are looking at Mount Isa. I am not suggesting it will happen in the next six months, but clearly there is a call from places in regional Australia like Mount Isa, and those calls are being very seriously considered at the moment. I can well understand the demand in places like Mount Isa, with a local economy that is expanding very rapidly on the back of the Howard government’s good economic management, with the freeing-up of mining and the pursuit of expert opportunities for our metal processing areas. We will keep an eye on this. We will look to other communities that want these ATCs.

Previous speakers have made a lot of the TAFE system; it is a good system and it works well within the constraints imposed upon it by the state governments. State governments are indeed, I think, criminal in the lack of support and assistance they provide for training. I know, in my own state of Queensland, the Queensland government spend more money on spin doctors and on trying to keep themselves in power than on doing things on the ground. I know the Queensland TAFE system is underfunded and that is to the great shame of the Queensland government. When you consider the money that the Queensland government are getting from the GST, you would think they would be able to put a bit more money into the health system and into vocational training, but they do not do it. That perhaps is a good opportunity for me to remind the Senate that every single cent that is collected from the GST in Australia goes to state governments.

With the economy booming the way it is, GST collections are increasing accordingly and all that money is going to the states. The states are awash with money. They are not, though, awash with sensible management of the money when they receive it. I would certainly hope that at some time in the future we will have state governments who can be responsible with money and who will use the huge windfall gains they are getting from the GST for things like helping a bit more with their own technical and further education colleges. But I digress.

This bill before us increases the total funding for the ATC initiative from about $350 million to more than $450 million for the period from 2006 to 2009. I indicated the way that relates to the Townsville ATC, and that is being mirrored across the country. Strong industry and community support for the ATC program has meant that more colleges than originally anticipated will be opening in 2007. This has meant additional costs, hence this bill before the parliament. As I emphasised before, the ATC program is significant and forward thinking because each college has been encouraged to pursue a model that best meets the needs of the region in which it is established. It is again with some pride that I mention the success of the Australian technical college in Townsville and the way the local board has directed it so that it suits the local economy and has also brought on board many of the employers in the region to support the trainees in their work.

It is interesting to note that many colleges have identified the need for multiple campuses to ensure appropriate coverage of a region. There are a number of examples of this. The Hunter Australian technical college in the Newcastle-Maitland-Singleton region is looking at that. I know that in regional Australia, a part of Australia I am very passionate about, this idea of multiple campuses will be popular for Australian technical colleges. James Cook University in Townsville, the Central Queensland University and the University of Southern Queensland are regional universities with many campuses, and this has been very beneficial for them. James Cook has a major campus in both Townsville and Cairns and a campus in Mackay and in many other parts of Australia as well. It is doing particularly well.

I noticed the previous speaker was railing about this government’s cutting back of funding for universities. I do not know where he gets his statistics from. Since our government has been in place, James Cook University has expanded very considerably. I am delighted to say we have a medical school there, something that the previous Labor administration could never contemplate. So we now have rural young people, rural students, coming through rural and regional universities, becoming doctors and then, more likely than not, going back into the regions of Australia once they qualify. I am delighted with the results of the medical school at James Cook University, which is now turning out doctors. It does not seem all that long ago that the program started, but it is actually achieving results on the ground at this time. As the years go on, it will provide additional doctors, particularly for rural and regional Australia. But again I digress.

The Australian technical colleges bill before us is a good news story. It does put additional money into a very worthwhile program. It is something the minister and the government as a whole should be very proud of. I would certainly be surprised if any senator in this chamber would oppose the bill. They may criticise aspects for political reasons, because their union bosses tell them to, but it is a great program. It is a very significant program and it has achieved success even beyond the expectation of those who put it together. That is demonstrated by the need for this bill to provide additional funding for the Australian technical colleges program in the current financial year. (Time expired)

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

I rise to speak to the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2006 but also to place on the record my abiding concern about the Howard government’s policies—and I use that word ‘policies’ very loosely indeed with regard to the training and skilling of Australian workers. Before I commence my comments on the bill I would like to take the previous speaker, Senator Ian Macdonald, to task. The tirade from Senator Macdonald is absolutely saddening. It is like watching an animal in its death throes. I can understand Senator Macdonald being very bitter, especially after being the only minister axed out of the cabinet last year. Senator Macdonald can stand here and bag all of us on this side of the chamber and have a go at our histories. There is not one of us ex-union officials and proud union members that ever hides the fact that we proudly stand on our record of representing workers in our home states. You, Senator Macdonald—through you, Mr Acting Deputy President—wouldn’t know a worker if you fell over one!

Ross Lightfoot (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Sterle, I trust you are going to get to the substance of the bill.

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

I will get to the substance but I must, Mr Acting Deputy President, take the failed minister to task on some of his ridiculous statements.

The Acting Deputy President:

You really should confine yourself to the substance of the bill.

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

I will, Mr Acting Deputy President, but you did let Senator Macdonald waffle on and have a crack at Senator George Campbell in his statements, so I would like to have the chance to defend Senator Campbell’s statements.

The Acting Deputy President:

Senator Sterle, you have not yet addressed the bill.

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

I will address the bill.

Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing, Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, I rise on a point of order. My point of order relates to a ruling that I heard an acting deputy president make in the chamber yesterday, or it may have been the day before—

The Acting Deputy President:

What is your point of order?

Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing, Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The ruling was—

The Acting Deputy President:

I was not asking about the ruling but the point of order.

Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing, Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

that speeches in the second reading debate can be fairly expansive. That was the ruling then and I believe that Senator Sterle, like the previous speaker, should also be allowed that—

The Acting Deputy President:

That is not a point of order, Senator McLucas.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, could I just—

The Acting Deputy President:

There was no point of order there, Senator Macdonald. Do you have a fresh point of order?

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do, Mr Acting Deputy President. It is really an anticipatory point of order. I draw the Senate’s attention to the rule that says second reading contributions should not be read. I ask you to carefully look at the next speaker, when he finishes his attack on me, and see whether he reads his speech.

The Acting Deputy President:

Senator, that is not a point of order. Senator Sterle.

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

I am talking about the bill, because the previous speaker belittled Senator Campbell’s figures in that context. I have the Hansard in front of me, Senator Macdonald. You may want to take your head out of your cardigan and go to the Hansard of Wednesday, 1 November 2006, and the Senate Committee on Employment, Workplace Relations and Education, and find what the department stated when quizzed by Senator Wong. The figures are clearly stated in Hansard. Senator Macdonald should shove the hush puppies in his mouth, I suggest, and at least read the Hansard before he starts attacking senators on this side and the Hansard figures. I do not think there is anything flawed in the Hansard of the department’s figures.

Government Senator:

A government senator interjecting—

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

Senator Wong was the questioner at the time. Those figures are there for everyone to see, and I suggest that Senator Macdonald take his foot out of his mouth, go read the Hansard and then come back and apologise to all and sundry, if he so wishes. I believe his bitterness is at getting the back of the axe. I will not waste any more time on Senator Macdonald’s tirade—a waste of oxygen—and his carry-on. I understand he is still bitter, being the only minister to get the back of the axe last year.

Getting back to the bill, the last time I spoke on the issue of the Australian technical collegesin this place was to address a similar bill that sought to bring forward funding for these institutions—so this all sounds very familiar. I believe once again the government has stuffed up the funding of these colleges. It has botched the costings by the sound of things, despite what the explanatory memorandum might say to the contrary. It is the latest sorry chapter unfortunately in what is becoming a very sorry saga. As my colleague the member for Perth and shadow education minister has already said, we are facing an extremely serious national skills crisis. No-one would debate that and I understand that you, Mr Acting Deputy President Lightfoot, coming from that fine state of Western Australia with our V8 economy, would have great knowledge of the skills shortage.

This is not a crisis that has arisen overnight nor is it a crisis brought about by the boom-time conditions we see in the great Labor states of Western Australia and Queensland. Rather it is a crisis brought about by the policy failure of the Howard government. For a large number of the 11 long years of this government, they ignored technical and vocational education, ignored the screaming need for an increased contribution by the Commonwealth towards expanding the scope and quality of that sector and ignored the increasing skills crisis in this country.

It was not as if they did not have plenty of warning not only from this side of politics but also from institutions like the Reserve Bank of Australia and organisations none other than the Business Council of Australia. The RBA has pointed repeatedly to the skills crisis as one of the reasons for the upward pressure on inflation—too little skilled labour being chased by employers prepared to pay top rates. It is a simple case of supply and demand. But that has fed through to inflation and increased interest rates—unfortunately, another legacy of the Howard government since the last election. We should all be reminded that there have been four interest rate rises since the last election. The Business Council too has repeatedly warned about the skills crisis and the damage it is doing to the prosperity of the nation. In fact, in a report on waste and mismanagement in the federal system, it pointed to the vocational and technical education sector as a major example of unnecessary duplication. So the government has won no friends there with the system it has set up.

Back at the 2004 election it suddenly dawned on this government that there was a problem and there still is a problem—most importantly, the problem is being recognised in the community. It is never really a problem for this government unless there is the possibility that it might lose votes as a result. Never mind the national good; unfortunately, for this government its first priority is winning votes.

So what to do? It is quite simple: blame the states. The previous speaker is an expert at laying blame on the states. In fact, the rhetoric is becoming quite boring. Unfortunately, it is a tactic that is used by most government senators when debating any bill. They blame the states, ignore the vast contribution they make to fund this area of education and training and—guess what?—they set up a completely separate system. It would be a bit like building a completely separate road system, except this government would end up designing a cul-de-sac or a road to nowhere, or building a new hospital next door to an existing one run by a state health system and putting shiny federal government badges on it. You know what the critics would say? You would be able to hear them from here because they would be screaming from the roofs about the waste of taxpayers’ money and the duplication. Quite frankly, they would be right.

This is what they did with technical and further education: ignored the existing downward trend in federal funding of the existing TAFE structure and set up a parallel one. But, anyway, here we are with this system of Australian technical colleges. It is a farce and unfortunately an expensive one at that. It has already cost one minister his job. The samurai sword came out and was taken to that minister who was originally charged with implementing this ridiculously wasteful plan. If he takes out a minister for a ridiculous or wasteful plan, the Prime Minister better have an entire armoury of swords, I would suggest, because there could be a whole line-up on that side of the chamber.

One minister has been virtually beheaded, but the government cannot stop digging and now needs more money to cover another stuff-up with regard to costings. And speaking of digging holes, perhaps the answer for the Howard government is to appoint a minister for potholes to supervise the number of holes this government is digging for itself. I can imagine the wonderful photo opportunities for that around this great country: ministers in shiny white hard hats standing in urban or rural areas for photoshoots with marginal seat holders, with the ministers saying, ‘Worker, pass me the silver shovel for the photo opportunity. While you are at it, can you put some of that black runny hot stuff in it.’ I can see the worker in his orange vest saying, ‘Yeah, it’s called bitumen, bonehead.’

I want to point to some recent comments by the chief economist of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Western Australia, Mr John Nicolau, in a story by Andrew Burrell in the Australian Financial Review on Friday, 9 February. Mr Nicolau is reported as pointing out:

... that almost all of the 9,400 new jobs created in WA in January were—

guess what—

part-time, and that the participation rate of 67 per cent was still too low.

Fancy that: 9,400 workers in Western Australia were part time. Isn’t that a wonderful story! We do not hear the government banging on about the part-timers. They come out and espouse their credentials on employment, but they do not mention 9,400 workers who are part time. Imagine what the worker hears: ‘Sorry, mate; no annual leave; no sick leave; no carers leave. What? You want a paid public holiday? Sorry, bucko—you’re part-time.’ Then they go to the bank: ‘I want to borrow some money for a housing loan.’ ‘Mate, stiff bickies. You’re not a full-time employee. Come back when you’re a full-time employee.’ Wonderful! We do not hear them talking about that on the other side of the chamber.

So we have this government crowing about all the jobs it is creating and we have the minister saying what a good thing Australian Workplace Agreements are, but here we see the truth: almost all the jobs being created are part time. And that has come from the Chamber of Commerce and Industry—a lackey for the other side of the chamber. What can we do for the Chamber of Commerce and Industry?

Honourable Senators:

Honourable senators—and I use that term very loosely, at some stages—get on their high horses and bang on about us being union lackeys and union hacks and kowtowing to our union bosses. Well—through you, Mr Acting Deputy President, to those on the other side of the chamber—there’s your mob giving you up. The game is up. They have exposed you for what you are—charlatans. It is not full-time employment.

Full-time employment? Tell that to the 9,400 part-time workers who would probably love a full-time job, not only to enjoy the rewards that come with full-time employment but to have the ability to walk into a bank and get a loan for a home. And no-one can tell me about the difficulty in getting a home loan, especially coming from Western Australia where prices are going through the roof.

I would also like to confirm a report in the West Australian. The previous speaker, Senator Ian Macdonald, is very aware of the West Australian. I think it is probably one of his favourite publications because every time I pick up the West Australian and there is a bad news story, Senator Macdonald gets a free run on the inside cover. But then, when I come to think about it, they are normally bagging him.

Anyway, there was an article here, in the West Australian, on Tuesday, 27 February, on page 14, by a Mr Shane Wright, the economics editor. What Mr Wright says there, very clearly, is that more than half a million people want to work more hours.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics found there were 544,600 people who could be described as under-employed—

mostly part-time workers who want more hours. Now, we know that. But Mr Wright goes on to say:

The under-employment level peaked at 5.7 per cent in September 2002 and despite the strong jobs market it has now only fallen to 5 per cent.

Coupled with those officially out of work, it means close to 10 per cent—

no less than 10 per cent—

of the total workforce are either jobless or under-employed.

We do not hear that coming out of the minister’s statements, do we? No, that is really kept quiet.

Mr Wright goes on:

Of the part-time workers looking for more hours, more than 213,000 wanted between 10 and 19 extra hours a week, while 34,000 said they wanted more than 30 hours.

Another interesting statistic here from Mr Wright is this:

Women account for about 61 per cent of under-employed part-time workers. About 53 per cent of these women actively sought out extra hours within the four weeks they were surveyed by the ABS.

But, no doubt, thanks to the new industrial relations regime imposed by this government, it is a case of: ‘Sorry, folks; too bad. You want full-time work or more hours? Thanks to this government, we as employers don’t have to give that to you.’

So much for Work Choices! So much for greater flexibility! It is a case of employers getting all the choices and the employees not getting the work they want and need. You on the other side have got the numbers in the chamber—why don’t we change the bill from ‘Work Choices’ to ‘Bosses’ Choices’? That would probably be a bit closer—no, I will rephrase that: it would be a hell of a lot closer to the mark.

And is this what Western Australian workers want? For the vast majority, I would say: no, they do not want part-time work. They want training and they want skills to take advantage of the incredible demand for trained and skilled workers.

Will they get that training and those skills from the Australian technical colleges? Once again, I say no. This cobbled-together Australian technical colleges system—as wasteful and as much of a duplication as it is—cannot meet the demand for training and skilling, not from the employers crying out for skilled workers and not from the workers themselves.

Labor will support this bill because any contribution to helping fix the skills crisis is better than none. But surely there must be a better way. The Australian Industry Group, I also note—certainly friends of the government—estimated that it would require 270,000 more trained workers to fill the current skills shortage. I will reiterate that number: 270,000. And skilled vacancies are rising, according to the January skilled vacancies index.

Sadly, the Howard government has not helped. Last year the AiG—once again, good friends of the government; good supporters of the government, unashamedly; they do not hide that fact—reported that real expenditure per hour for vocational education and training had gone down in recent years. Not up—down. Funding today is lower, in real terms, than it was in Labor’s last year in office—some 11 years ago—and it has gone down. That is according to figures from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research.

The anecdotal evidence about enrolments at these ATCs does not show much promise either. From what I am told, enrolments at the ATCs in the Perth area are nowhere near what were promised. This is anecdotal evidence only, but in a boom town like Perth, with industry screaming for skilled workers, you would have thought there would be an equally screaming demand for places at the Australian technical colleges. You would have also thought that there would be a continuing stream of full-time skilled jobs being filled. But no—Mr Nicolou has given it up; he has let the cat out of the bag—there are 9,400 part-time jobs just in January. Some solution from the Howard government to the skills crisis! Such is this government’s track record over 11 long years on this issue of education—in particular, technical and vocational education, because that is the subject at hand—that I fear the worst. I genuinely wish that this government might do something positive in this area, and hence our side’s grudging support for this bill. But, as I say, I do fear the worst.

I know I have been pulled up in this chamber before by some sensitive souls over my chosen language—I think I have turned to the language of Labor, of which I am very proud—and I fear I may upset the sensitive ones once again. Unfortunately, after the performance I have seen from the previous speaker, it has encouraged me—as hard as I am trying not to, but I am going to have to!—to use the ‘f’ word. Unfortunately the ‘f’ word comes to mind! I cannot forgive myself, but it is ‘failure’—that is what it is; it is ‘failure’. Every time I look at that sorry side over there, all I can see is failure—and more so in the lack of training and skills.

This government has presided over a skills crisis and has failed continually to make sure Australians receive the training they need and the economy needs to go forward. It has been a failure that has been a brake on the economy and our prosperity. This government has failed to make the investments necessary in our schools and in the existing TAFE system to ensure younger Australians in particular have access to high-quality vocational education—including at their schools. This government has failed to increase the number of school based traditional apprentices and failed to provide the funding support for schools to take up the places. Instead it has created these expensive—and, as this bill appears to demonstrate, getting ever more expensive—inefficient, stand-alone colleges, without seeking the cooperation of the states along the lines of the already existing vocational education and training framework. In the process the Howard government has ridden roughshod over the states and territories, and ignored the incredibly significant role the states and territories play in vocational education and training. And when will we see the first fruits from this expensive game of ‘blame the states’? Not until 2010.

In summing up, I was flicking through the Prime Minister’s media release about Skills for the Future. It says:

New financial incentives will help more Australians looking to take up a trade apprenticeship in mid-career.

I thought, ‘What does that mean?’, so I quickly flicked over to the back to the memorandum and it reads:

The Prime Minister has announced that from 1 July 2007, there will be financial support for mid-career workers aged 30 or more ...

They are going to flick a bit of money. I just want to entertain you for a second, Mr Acting Deputy President Marshall, especially with your background and wide knowledge of the lack of training and skills and dealing with apprentices. There is $150 per week for a mid-career apprentice on top of a wage in the construction industry for an apprentice of $8.13 an hour. What a wonderful contribution from a government that is out of puff, out of touch and arrogant.

Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I stand to speak and support the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia's Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2006. I do so for a number of reasons. In my outline of those reasons I will also respond to the attacks and the allegations made by Senator Sterle and members on the other side. In fact, I want to say that I was disappointed with the personal attacks by Senator Sterle specifically with respect to Senator Ian Macdonald and former Minister Gary Hardgrave. I do not think that does him any good at all. I think we should be playing the ball and not the man.

He has also been waxing lyrical about the policy approach of our government and the policy approach—or void—from the opposition side. He has referred to the Work Choices regime and attacked it, notwithstanding the fact that members on his side of the chamber and in the union movement said that it would be a recipe for a slashing of jobs and would put downward pressure on wages. Of course, both those allegations were entirely false. Members on the other side should be apologising to the Australian people for those false accusations that have been made.

With respect to the slashing of jobs, the exact opposite has occurred. We have now seen over 240,000 new jobs since Work Choices was introduced in March last year. The runs are on the board. Howard has delivered again. Compare that to 13 years under Labor when you had one million Australians unemployed. Unemployment now is at a 30-year low and you have a very strong economy and wages growth.

With respect to Labor and the union movement’s attack on Work Choices, saying that it would be a downward pressure on wages, of course that is entirely wrong; in fact, the opposite is correct, with an over 16½-per cent increase in real wages since the Howard government came to power in 1996 and continuing improvement in real wages. That is more money in the pockets of the working men and women of Australia, benefiting them and their families. Under 13 years of Labor you had a 1.3 per cent reduction in real wages. That is less money in the pockets of working men and women of Australia. Labor’s policy is to rip up AWAs. AWAs provide the flexibility and the choice. It is not compulsory; it is voluntary and it provides choice for the Australian people. Senator Sterle and others—indeed, Mr Rudd—have a position of ripping up AWAs and removing the choice.

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Shame!

Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is a great shame, as Senator Nash indicates. I totally agree. The other key point I want to make about Labor’s policy is that they want to go back to the bad old days of the unfair dismissal laws. This is my sadness and disappointment on behalf of the small business community across the country. They have finally got rid of the unfair dismissal laws that were set up by the Keating Labor government, and now Kevin Rudd says he wants to go back to those bad old days. I think I know what the small business community are going to say in the lead-up to the election. There will be a clear choice: you either reintroduce the unfair dismissal laws or you retain the job-creating environment in which we operate in Australia today. I wanted to respond to those particular allegations that Senator Sterle made.

One of the key reasons I want to support the bill before us today is that the Tasmanian federal Liberal team has been very supportive of the Australian technical colleges initiative brought in by the Howard government. I want to acknowledge the tremendous work of former minister Gary Hardgrave in getting these colleges up and running around the country. I specifically want to acknowledge my colleagues Michael Ferguson and Mark Baker, the federal Liberal members in Bass and Braddon. They have championed the cause. They have been proud supporters of the colleges nationally, and specifically the ATCs in northern Tasmania and on Tasmania’s north-west coast. Michael Ferguson and Mark Baker worked hard with the business community, the academic community and their local communities to get these colleges established. They made it happen in Tasmania, with the support of the Howard government, Minister Hardgrave and others. They established these colleges and got them up and going. The colleges are now proving to be a great springboard towards a trade career for year 11 and 12 students in Tasmania.

I am a member of the Senate Standing Committee on Employment, Workplace Relations and Education, which is chaired by the Hon. Judith Troeth. That committee recently produced a report on this very bill, which recommended increased funding of $104 million to support Australian technical colleges through to 2009-10. It is a short report but it makes it clear that there is support from all members of the committee for this particular legislation. That is the good news.

We have heard members on the other side oppose the Australian technical colleges and the approach that we are taking, yet on the other hand they are happy to support funding for the technical colleges. Some people might say that is hypocritical. I will leave that for the community and the men and women of Australia to decide.

It is interesting that just this month the Launceston City Council in northern Tasmania has approved the sale of land to allow for the building of an Australian technical college. The Launceston campus of the northern Tasmanian Australian technical college is currently based in a former school building at Riverside in Launceston. The council’s approval for the sale of the land means the college will be built near the historic Inveresk precinct, which is fast becoming a true hub of learning and recreation in Tasmania. The ATC will be surrounded by a campus of the University of Tasmania, including a school of architecture and furniture construction. My understanding is that the university is in support of that.

The university has a great track record. Only two weeks ago, in the Senate budget estimates hearing in Canberra, we were advised that the University of Tasmania is now the third largest employer in Tasmania, with 1,800 staff, and student numbers are expected to grow from 12,500 to 15,000 by 2010 and to 20,000 by 2020. Student numbers were 10,000 back in 2000. The university is making a very important contribution to Tasmania and our economy. By 2020, according to the figures before the Senate committee, the total contribution by UTas to Tasmania’s GSP will be $425 million, or three per cent of total gross state product. It is a quiet achiever doing a good job. I congratulate the university on its growth and support. That is entirely contrary to the views of the other side, which says we have had an attack on tertiary funding and tertiary services in Australian. Of course, that is entirely wrong. There has been a big investment in tertiary education in Australia, and that is proven.

The ATC in Tasmania is up and moving and it is going well. Also at Inveresk is the Queen Victoria Museum, the function centres and York Park—also known as Aurora Stadium—which is the home of Australian Rules football in Tasmania. The move to Inveresk will be another positive step for the northern Tasmanian Australian technical college, which is truly succeeding in the region. The courses are almost completely subscribed, with only a few places left in commercial cookery. This is positive news and it comes in a month when the Labor Party has so stunningly and pathetically vowed to scrap the Australian technical colleges. This is in my view just another example of a party that wants to continue with political point-scoring at the cost of real opportunities for young people and ultimately at the cost of their potential careers.

Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing, Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When did we say that?

Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is the end result, Senator McLucas, of your policy. You want the state governments to take over the ATCs. We know what that means: the unions will be in control of the ATCs—and I will be coming to that matter in my deliberations. The Labor Party opposes the colleges purely because they are a Howard government initiative; it is that short and simple. It is an ideological opposition devoid of any integrity, small-minded and hell-bent on segregating vocational education and training from any other academic advancement. I am appalled at Labor’s attitude and its negative approach of trying to stop these students from getting a start in life. Labor opposes the ATCs, yet, in the Senate committee report that I have just referred to, the ALP actually supports this bill to inject further funds. I ask again: is that hypocritical or not?

Courses at the college will involve the skills of selected trades as well as TCE studies in mathematics, English, science, business studies, information technology, vocational learning and work readiness, and other relevant subjects. Importantly, these subjects will relate to the chosen trade, therefore making the courses much more relevant and interesting from the student’s perspective. Students will continue with TCE studies, so that we ensure their readiness for any future training down the track. That is a good approach. That is as well as their completing the trade skills of their selected trade. So we are preparing these young people for a future. We are giving them hope and an opportunity to get a head start. We are giving them potential in life and the opportunity to reach their potential.

The northern Tasmanian ATC management has been working extremely hard to ensure that the college is the success that it is today. The bright future for the ATC began back in September 2005, when there was formal acceptance by a Tasmanian consortium to actually be the lead agent for Tasmania’s technical college. The outcome was a breakthrough that the community had been waiting for and deserved. They have received strong support from, in particular—in the north—Michael Ferguson, the federal member for Bass, and Mark Baker, the federal member for Braddon. Today Tasmania’s Australian technical college is operating from a campus in Launceston, which opened in July last year, and a campus in Burnie, which opened in August last year. The Tasmanian consortium is made up of St Patrick’s College and Learning Partners, along with the Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Senator Sterle and other members on the other side accuse us of relating to and acknowledging the views of the business community in Tasmania represented by the Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, headed by Damon Thomas, who is its chief executive. I want to respond on behalf of Damon and the TCCI. I say to disregard the views of Senator Sterle and those on the other side. I say to the TCCI: ‘We appreciate your input because you represent business. You actually represent small businesses throughout Tasmania, and we believe that small businesses are very important. We believe that small business is the backbone of the economy, particularly in Tasmania, a small business state with over 50 per cent of the private sector workforce coming from small business.’ I can tell Senator Sterle that the majority of the TCCI’s membership is actually made up of small businesses. Senator, you should be prepared to come to Tasmania and say face to face to the leaders of the business community at the TCCI the words that you have shared with us today, and we will see how they respond to the accusations that you have made.

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

I am an ex-small business man myself, Senator.

Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very proud to work with them and other small business organisations in Tasmania, as are Michael Ferguson and Mark Baker. They have made something happen. They have created something out of nothing to provide a future for young people in Tasmania. I am proud of their efforts and I am proud to be part of the team to make it happen.

As for the consortium, the ATC’s governing body consists of industry, education and community representatives. They are working with northern Tasmanian ATC principal, Nigel Hill, who should be commended for his work to date, and the independent chair, Lloyd Whish-Wilson. Lloyd is a retired newspaper executive. He spent time at the Examiner newspaper and the Canberra Times and is highly regarded not only in Tasmania but nationally, particularly in national business circles. We are very proud of his record and of his support for the ATC in Tasmania. Industry support is reflected in the governance of the college through the Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, as I have indicated, and other industry and local business representation. Industry reference groups are being established by region and/or industry as required to provide direct input into the operation of the college.

The northern Tasmanian ATC commenced operation by focusing on two industries: building and construction, and metal and engineering. Three additional industry areas are being offered this year: commercial cookery, electrotechnology and plumbing. In 2008 rural and automotive are planned to be added. In Launceston the college student numbers will be 93 this year, I am advised, 180 next year and 209 in 2009. For the Burnie campus, I am advised, there will be 82 students this year, 98 next year and 114 by 2009. So within three years there will be 323 students benefiting from the college’s services. Students enrolling in 2006 were not charged a fee. That is a great record to have, and I am proud to be part of a government that has delivered those opportunities for those young Tasmanian students. For each year thereafter students will be charged fees of $500 per annum. This rate is comparable to primary, secondary and college student fees in the region, and scholarships will be sought from industry sponsors.

I support this bill because it is another way to ensure that the Australian government can look after the young people of Australia and meet all their education and training needs. We are delivering on a 2004 election commitment. We promised and we are now delivering. It has gone from an idea to a reality in a remarkably short space of time, with 20 ATCs currently operating at 33 campuses around Australia. In 2008 that number will increase to 25 colleges at 39 campuses, and in 2009 to 40 campuses. Some 2,000 students across Australia are already benefiting from being able to do their year 11, obtain their year 12 school certificate and start an apprenticeship at the same time. Nationally, 7,500 students are expected to be attending colleges each year once they are fully operational in 2009. These students will finish their two years at an ATC having completed their high-school education and will already be two years into their chosen trade or vocational training, giving them an important head start for their career.

Having more young Australians undertake vocational and technical training is vital for the continued growth of the Australian economy. It addresses the skills shortage—and in parts of Australia there is a skills shortage, due in large part to our unemployment rate being at a 30-year low, which has been driven by more than a decade of uninterrupted economic growth under the Howard-Costello team. We need young Australians to look at a vocational or trade career as a good option for their futures. For too long in Australia, a technical or trade education has been considered a second-class option to a university degree. This is exactly what happened under the Labor government before the Howard government came in about 11 years ago. Parents considered themselves failures if their children did not leave high school to go on to a university degree. We want this to change, and it is changing, and we are proud of that record. We want a good technical or trade qualification to be as highly prized as a university degree. We want parents and teachers to highlight ATCs, Australian Apprenticeships and TAFE courses as highly sought after and valuable career directions for young Australians. We want young Australians with technical and vocational skills to feel very proud about pursuing training in a career which develops and utilises those special talents.

The ATCs will go a long way towards lifting the status of vocational and technical education. These colleges will provide students with high-quality teaching and facilities, including cutting edge machinery and equipment on which to train. The curriculum will be influenced and directed by local industry and business to ensure that students emerge with highly relevant and in-demand skills. We are leading the way. The record is there. As I said, Michael Ferguson and Mark Baker have led the way in Tasmania, with the support of the Liberal Senate team. We are proud of that record, we stand by it, we support them and we are looking forward to the future and providing hope for young Tasmanians. (Time expired)

Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition (Social and Community Affairs)) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will begin by reminding those listening to this debate just what the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2006 is all about. It is about amending column 2 of the financial assistance table under section 18(4) of the act, to increase the total funding appropriated under the act. There is a reason for it, of course, and we heard a little bit about that reason, but the fact is that this is going to take the total appropriations for the Australian technical colleges program—the Howard government’s approach to vocational education and training—to an investment of half a billion dollars. The question has to be asked: what are we going to see for half a billion dollars in investment in the skills shortage that is now rampant in Australia?

My background in the vocational education and training sector gives me the opportunity to reflect on where I think half a billion dollars would be appreciated. I know that it certainly would be appreciated if it was directed to the good things that are already happening in schools, TAFEs, industry partnerships and cluster networks. As a rule, I would say that half a billion dollars being spent on education would be very welcome indeed, but with this investment we have to ask the question: where has this money gone?

Labor have strong reservations about the Howard government’s approach to vocational education and training and it is not difficult to understand why. We are supporting this bill and, in doing so, we are mindful that a skilled labour force is a major priority that is desperately and urgently required to maintain this country’s manufacturing and economic base. It is all the more frustrating, then, to note that the February 2007 vacancy report of the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations provides evidence that skilled vacancies in Australia continue to rise despite this government spending $340 million to fix the problem, with a proposal to increase that by another $112.6 million. The government says that this is necessary because of the cost increases associated with the start-up of the Australian technical colleges system. The question to be asked is whether this the wisest option for investing in the creation of a skilled workforce to meet our current and future industry needs. I really think that is a question that begs answering by the government.

The skilled vacancy index shows an increase of 6.1 per cent in skilled vacancies in Australia since February last year. Occupations included in the vacancy report are food, hospitality and tourism—prime targets of the Australian technical colleges. The strongest increase was for the wood trades—an increase of 6.9 per cent from January to February 2007, which equates to an alarming 49.2 per cent increase for the year 2006-07. Other occupational groups recording an increase in vacancy rates, and which are also prime target areas of the Australian technical colleges, are: metal industry trades, with an increase of 1.2 per cent; the construction industry, which increased by 0.4 per cent; the food industry, which increased by 3.3 per cent; and hairdressing, which increased by two per cent.

The continued upwards trend in skills shortages, despite the introduction of the Australian technical colleges system, provides evidence that there really has not been an outcome in return for the investment of millions of dollars in this vocational educational trial. The outcomes promised have not been delivered, and the figures provided during Senate estimates on enrolments in Australian technical colleges tell us why. It is because the numbers enrolled are abysmal. We heard Senator Barnett mention that there are 20 Australian technical colleges currently operating, forecasting 2,000 enrolments this year and 7,500 by 2009. This makes you wonder what contribution that is going to make in the longer term to addressing the skills shortage.

I want to make some comments about what is happening with skills shortages in New South Wales, particularly in regional areas. Communities that were provided with a welcome opportunity for economic growth have actually been inhibited in their efforts to capitalise on that opportunity because they simply cannot find skilled workers to fill the newly created jobs. The Prime Minister claimed that this initiative was about addressing the skills shortage in Australia, claiming before the election of 2004 that Australia was experiencing significant shortages in key trades, including the building and construction, metals, manufacturing and automotive sectors. It would appear that, despite the government throwing millions of dollars at this ill-conceived program, nothing has changed in 2007 and Australia is still facing significant and growing skills shortages. Employers and businesses throughout regional New South Wales, currently in the grip of a debilitating drought, are displaying immense fortitude and resilience.

The Australian Industry Group has asked for further reforms to the vocational education and training system. That too provides evidence of little confidence in the Howard government’s Australian technical colleges system. The Australian Industry Group are asking for a reformed vocational education and training system which delivers the skills required by industry in a flexible and responsive manner.

The Australian technical college system does not address the fundamental issues of the disincentives for young Australians to take up trade related positions. The scandalously low wages paid to building trade apprentices in the building and constructing industry, for example, are a testament to these disincentives. Government support for industry-grown solutions to address the skills needs and employee conditions is vital if Australia is to meet the challenges of an ageing workforce. What industry needs is a training system that is demand driven, providing incentives for training providers to better meet the needs of employers and produce quality tradespeople. The failure to get it right will do longer term damage to an already brittle system.

To increase funding for the Australian technical colleges before there is evidence that the system is even working is yet another premature reaction by the Howard government in a vain attempt to rein in the skills shortage disaster. Costs for establishing the colleges are already blowing out significantly beyond estimates. It is irresponsible and naive to direct further funding to a young, unproven and costly system.

Cost increases in the areas of curriculum development, trade training and operational arrangements should be directly attributed to poor budgetary preparation and costing. The very idea of a curriculum being developed without consultation with the trade or industry that the system is meant to be supporting is absolutely ludicrous. Those who have been involved in vocational education and training for a long time understand the importance of close linkages with industry so that the training curriculum meets emerging industry needs. For our national government to get so wrong the costing for the development of trade training facilities to teach the very trade that it is training in is, quite frankly, embarrassing to say the least.

The disappointing thing is that the money could have been funnelled into the TAFE system of vocational education to shore up, enhance and stabilise an education provider that is well established throughout Australia and that has the appropriate facilities, expertise and credentials to provide education in an area of such urgent need. Instead of tapping into and working with the TAFE system to maximise education and training outcomes, the government is now committed to establishing this very unnecessary duplicate education system. No wonder there are inefficiencies and cost overruns. The TAFE education system has an excellent and proud history of providing fine young tradespeople. I am very proud to have been associated with the TAFE system in New South Wales for over 10 years. TAFE provides education opportunities for ordinary Australians to progress in their career choices.

I will give you some examples of just what is going on in New South Wales TAFEs. Take, for example, a Bartters production line worker in the Riverina region. Jason Vardanega is about to change his life because he has enrolled in a business course that is enabling him to embark on a new life pathway. He admits that his current work, which involves filleting, deboning and packing chickens at Bartters, is pretty tedious and boring and requires limited skills, but at 33 he has now successfully obtained a Commonwealth government skills voucher, enabling him to enrol at TAFE New South Wales Riverina Institute’s Griffith campus to learn computer and office administration skills—a smart move that uses the existing infrastructure in our communities. TAFE’s flexible style of delivery and outstanding teacher support will enable Jason to improve his work skills and future career prospects. Such is the absolute success of Australia’s TAFE education system.

Another example is a young mother from Wagga, who was awarded a $2,000 youth scholarship from the New South Wales government to further her studies at TAFE New South Wales Riverina Institute. Her name is Annah McIntosh. She won one of three scholarships in the Riverina region and plans to complete her HSC before going on to university to study psychology. At Leeton in western New South Wales, certificate IV and advanced diploma courses in civil engineering design will be implemented in response to strong demand from industry and local government in the region. It is attracting students from as far away as Grafton, Wollongong, Barham and Tamworth.

The TAFE system delivers quality outcomes to where they are needed most, and the lack of interest in this educational system by the Howard government demonstrates that a skilled Australia has not been a priority for this government. The skills shortage widely recognises an acute shortage of engineers, and the civil engineering design course through Riverina Institute’s Leeton campus continues to build a strong following and is taking a second intake this month. This demonstrates another outstanding TAFE success story.

I have to agree with Senator Barnett that regional Australia has generally embraced the Australian technical college concept—and why wouldn’t they, as they see funding stripped away from their TAFE colleges and the colleges are working to deliver some community solutions for their young people? Communities where a college has been or is going to be established have welcomed the financial investment in their communities. The local communities, industry and businesses have rallied behind the development and establishment of the colleges, demonstrating absolutely the need for local outcomes for local skills problems that meet the longer term needs of their communities.

This Australian technical college ‘initiative’ announced during the 2004 federal election is really a furphy. It is a move that has been demonstrated to be a knee-jerk reaction by the Howard government to the skills shortage. Responsibility for the promises and the spending offers made during the election cycles needs to be focused on delivering quality and well-founded community-benefiting programs. This particular program saw large investments in regional Australia, and, as I said, for the most part communities will embrace the government spending dollars in their backyard—and who would blame them for doing that?

However, there are many communities that do not perhaps believe that what is offered will always deliver the best outcomes—or, in fact, deliver at all—and this promise is one of those. In the 2004 election framework the Howard government finally woke up to the skills crisis, which has been costing our economy millions. It has now taken three years to get that political solution, that political fix, off the ground, and it still is not going to produce a graduate until 2010. The businesses, communities and individuals of Australia do not deserve just another funding promise because we are now entering the next election phase.

The New South Wales government actually has a practical solution: it is implementing a very innovative incentive and assistance package to assist rural and remote communities to attract key trained staff. At the moment we are seeing some initiatives being introduced in several public sector agencies, including in health, justice and community services. The package includes performance based cash incentives and assistance with relocation and housing costs, professional development and training opportunities, the provision of equipment to enhance work performance, and enhanced compassionate travel for family visits.

The Commonwealth’s role in the Australian education system is the provision of national leadership. The Australian Labor Party is committed to working with the states and territories and the non-government sector to develop a more productive system of education, with less duplication of services. Labor is committed to educating our nation, and has made education one of the three priorities on the federalism agenda for a future federal Labor government. But, in the meantime, we are stuck with having to prop up the Australian technical college initiative of this government because of the underfunding of the process. Labor will be supporting this legislation while recognising that there are fatal flaws in the whole system but understanding that communities are waiting to hear that the commitment they have put into local solutions will actually see them delivered.

Grant Chapman (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I say in response to Senator Stephens: this bill has nothing to do with an issue of underfunding; what it has to do with is the enthusiasm and the excitement with which parents have embraced the concept of the Australian technical colleges initiated by the Howard government. The Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2006 amends the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Act 2005 to provide additional funding of $112.6 million over the years 2005 to 2009 for the establishment and operation of Australian technical colleges. As I said, what that reflects is the enthusiasm with which the community has embraced this commitment and initiative of the Howard government. The original act implemented a Howard government commitment made during the 2004 election that provides for the establishment and operation of 25 Australian technical colleges for up to 7,500 year 11 and 12 students in 24 nominated regions across Australia.

The bill that we are debating today builds on that existing policy initiative from the Howard government to provide the workforce skills that employers are demanding. This is a consequence of the high demand for goods and services, both within Australia and by overseas customers, resulting from the strong and competitive economy which the Howard government’s economic reforms have built. Our economy is strong and, provided a Liberal-National government retains the reins of government, it will remain strong.

Therefore, while it is opportune to remind the Senate of the initiative being enhanced by this legislation, it is also prudent to build on that by considering new policy options. I will do that in a few moments and contrast those options with Mr Rudd’s recent deceptive and empty rhetoric which he has called his ‘education revolution’. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, the Howard government has taken up the challenge with regard to technical education by establishing 25 Australian technical colleges across 24 regions to promote pride and excellence in the teaching and acquiring of trade skills at the secondary school level at an initial cost of $343.6 million. This legislation provides an extra $112.6 million for the Australian technical college program until the end of 2009.

The Australian technical colleges will meet the increasing demand for skilled tradespeople throughout Australia and, once fully operational, will provide up to 7,500 young Australians a year with the opportunity to combine an Australian school based apprenticeship in a trade with their senior secondary school studies. Further, the Australian government is delivering a range of initiatives through to 2010 as part of its $11.3 billion investment in Australia’s future—the biggest commitment to vocational and technical education by any government in Australia’s history. That gives the lie to what we are hearing from the opposite side in this chamber today. This is the biggest commitment in technical and vocational education in Australia’s history.

The Australian technical college at Christie Downs in South Australia, for which the very hardworking member for Kingston, Kym Richardson, and I lobbied extremely hard—

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Minister for the Arts and Sport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He’s a great man.

Grant Chapman (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He is indeed. He is an excellent representative of the people living in the Kingston electorate and works very hard on their behalf to deliver programs and support for that community. That college is a $16 million project. It opened its doors two weeks ago with 105 students. Next year that will double to more than 200, and by its fifth year of operation there will be some 450 students at the Australian technical college at Christie Downs.

I said earlier that the reason we are providing this additional funding is the enthusiasm with which parents have engaged in the opportunity for their children to become part of the Australian technical college program. That enthusiasm for this Howard government initiative was demonstrated very clearly late last year, when more than 300 parents crammed into a hall at Christie Downs for an information night on the college. The program for Australian technical colleges builds on the Howard government’s highly effective New Apprenticeships scheme in addressing our skills shortage.

Under the 10 years of strong economic management of the Howard government, the number of new apprentices in training has grown from 143,700 in 1995 to more than 400,000 today. Statistics from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research report that in the 12 months to 30 June 2006 new commencements of Australian apprenticeships grew to 267,200. Looking at broader industry requirements for skilled workers in areas requiring strong skills in maths and science, such as engineering and biotechnology, we must see our classrooms and universities as the soil to grow the seeds of our innovative nation.

Under the Howard government initiative Skills for the Future, specifically addressing the national skills shortage, an extra 510 HECS-supported engineering places have been made available this year, with an additional 500 in 2008. Motivated by industry based supply shortages, this will also meet unmet student demand for engineering courses. These facts demonstrate that the Australian government’s initiatives in encouraging people to take up training opportunities, particularly in the trades but also at the professional level, are working. We need to build on this foundation. Education is a fundamental component of our innovation policy, producing enormous future productivity throughout the economy, and is at the core of building a knowledge based economy.

Global markets are increasingly dominated by a greater dependence on knowledge, information and high skill levels. The interplay of supply and demand between education and industry requires long-term policy objectives which link to specific policies. We need to engage the imagination and expectations of children and young adults. At the school level, for a national policy strategy on maths and science, I am advocating the development of a nationally linked science education network as an option that could be administered under the existing Skills for the Future initiative.

Under this option, science and maths teachers would be able to pair with science related industry and research and development professionals across the public and private sectors in classroom mentor partnerships, supported by an ongoing national web based awareness and careers campaign, including a comprehensive suite of teaching aid materials. Students could also engage in an online youth science network, using blogs, video files, podcasts and science topic chat rooms to enhance their interactive experience.

Organisations such as CSIRO and Questacon need to play a vital role in working with a national steering committee in the development of web based resources, teaching aid materials and interactive design and content solutions. In this way students will get excited about science and maths, and that is the important issue in ensuring that they embark on further education and careers in the key fields of demand.

In addressing ongoing teacher motivation and teaching innovation, an online teacher network would be a valuable initiative, combined with short-term industry placements for teachers in science and maths related areas about which they feel passionate, so that they get knowledge and experience of what is required in the workplace with regard to science and maths. The answer is about not just enticing good science and maths teachers back into the system but also changing what often amounts to cultures of institutionalised mediocrity.

Post-secondary education provides another critical opportunity to develop targeted incentives that are well integrated with a school based strategy. For example, targeted government-funded HECS scholarships for broad based maths and science fields not only bring a strong element of prestige to a student but also certainly look great on a CV when finding that first job.

The ideas that I am putting forward contrast markedly with those of the Leader of the Opposition, Kevin Rudd. He recently proposed a HECS reduction for maths and science degrees. This completely fails to address the awareness and motivation which is the key to young adults getting excited about and engaging in maths and science. In light of what motivates students, such a proposal would be ineffective in lifting student numbers in maths and science. HECS fees are not the issue. The issue is developing interest and motivation among young people for maths and science based studies. The Rudd HECS sweetener is ultimately an ineffective policy tool. There are simply no solid policy responses in Mr Rudd’s quagmire of deceptive rhetoric. The so-called ‘education revolution’ which he has proposed is little more than a cut-and-paste job from then British Labour opposition leader Tony Blair’s 1997 campaign.

Furthermore, it needs to be noted that Australia’s spending on tertiary education has not declined by seven per cent between 1995 and 2003, as Mr Rudd claims. The OECD figures exclude 75 per cent of funding for vocational and technical education which is included for other countries. When comparing apples with apples, OECD figures show total Australian expenditure on tertiary educational institutions actually increased by 25 per cent in real terms between 1995 and 2003. Australian government investment in Australian universities increased by 7.7 per cent in real terms over that period.

Mr Rudd needs to stop his deceptive rhetoric. We need real policy solutions, not his deceptive rhetoric. It is a matter of looking at trends in education and industry and linking those trends with a responsible and balanced perspective and a continual focus on struggling families, community wellbeing and economic growth, which are clearly demonstrated by the policies of the Howard government. They are clearly reflected in this legislation today. I commend the legislation to the Senate.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2006. This bill amends the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Act 2005, which originally provided for the establishment and operation of Australian technical colleges. The act provides funding for the operation of the colleges from 2005 to 2009. This bill will increase the funding for Australian technical colleges for the 2006-2009 period, increasing the total funding provided for under the act by $112.6 million, from $343.6 million to $456.2 million until 2009. Labor supports this increase in funding to the Australian technical colleges as a welcome turnaround from the government’s record when it comes to funding in the skills sector.

As we all know, the Australian technical colleges were hastily introduced by the Howard government during the 2004 election campaign as an attempt at a quick fix for Australia’s skilled labour crisis. Let me be clear: I am not opposed to those involved in the Australian technical colleges; however, senators opposite have tried to imply that in some of the comments they have made in the chamber today. My view is: why reinvent the wheel? Why not invest? Why didn’t the government reinvest in the TAFE system that has, in broad terms, the runs on the board and has proved, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that it has the skills, the experience and the expertise to ensure that things do not end up like now, where we have a skills crisis in this country under the leadership of the Howard government following the last 11 long and difficult years? As usual, though, we see government senators trying to rewrite history and gloss over the facts. If you talk to people within the community, it is very evident that there is a massive skills shortage and that people in everyday rural communities and in the cities are really struggling.

The introduction of technical colleges followed successive cuts in federal funding since 1997 for the TAFE sector. But it was a clear-cut case of too little too late, as the limited interest in enrolments and the repeated delays in implementation did little to address the problem. However, the government’s attempt to at least appear to be doing something about the skills crisis is encouraging.

Labor has repeatedly argued that funding for these colleges will have little or no impact on the current skills crisis because students currently attending these colleges will not graduate until 2010. While the money that this bill will direct towards additional funding for these colleges is welcome as a step forward, the money could be redirected to much more productive areas, including traditional apprenticeships and additional funding for the TAFE sector. We all know, as I said before, that these are outstanding educational institutions that already have the runs on the board.

Over the 10 or so long years of the Howard government, 300,000 Australians have been turned away from TAFE. The Prime Minister’s answer, when faced with a shortage of skills, has not been to look to training Australians and towards the future but to import hundreds of thousands of extra skilled migrants. Australia’s economy cannot be reliant upon imported labour for the future. Australia needs a government that will invest in our TAFEs and universities to produce the tradespeople, engineers, scientists, doctors and nurses that Australia so desperately needs.

Australian communities are already suffering as a result of the Howard government’s trade policies. The recently announced closure of the Blundstone factory in Hobart is yet another casualty of the Prime Minister’s tariff reductions and active encouragement of business to head offshore to look for cheaper labour. It seems that the newspapers in Tasmania have a story every other day about the latest factory closure and the latest slashing of jobs in unavoidable ‘restructures’. Yet at the same time I hear stories from constituents who are finding it very difficult to acquire tradespeople to build their homes or to do renovations. In Launceston only last week we saw 30 long-term employees of ACL Bearing made redundant, with another 60 to go over the next couple of months.

Not only is this government doing nothing to encourage Australians to train in the skills sector; it is also encouraging Australian companies to use offshore labour, thus slowly eating away at our already depleted skills base. The Howard government offers Australians a wealth of contradictions but no fresh solutions to Australia’s skills crisis, despite the fact that it has admitted the failure in its approach to the skills sector.

In November last year the Reserve Bank warned that, because skills ‘shortages are widespread across most industries and skill levels’, core inflation in the Australian economy will remain high for several years. The Australian Industry Group says Australia will need an extra 100,000 tradespeople by 2010, and a recent audit by the Department of Education, Science and Training found Australia will also need an extra 20,000 scientists and engineers in the next six years.

While Labor welcomes any additional funding that will benefit Australia’s skills shortage, the Howard government should be questioning whether its tech colleges are the best possible use of the money it has available. You would think figures like those that the Australian Industry Group has quoted and the warning of the Reserve Bank would be enough to make the Prime Minister and his government act.

Labor’s priority is to turn around the skills crisis by training Australians—first, by redirecting funding to the TAFE sector and vocational education initiatives. Australia’s future is reliant on investment in the skills sector today. Australia needs a government that understands that our skilled workers are our most valuable asset. The Howard government will never understand that concept, as it has proven over the last 10 or so long years. (Quorum formed)

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are debating today the government’s Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2006. The purpose of the bill is to increase the Australian government’s contribution to its establishment of some 25 technical colleges from its original $343 million to $456 million. That is an increase of $112 million. And it is necessary to bring in this amendment bill. The fact is that the establishment of the technical colleges in the original bill has been a success. The additional funding will provide the capacity for the technical colleges to provide high levels of support to both students and employers who engage students as Australia’s school based apprentices.

The key feature of the technical colleges program is flexibility. Each college has been encouraged to pursue a model that best meets the needs of the region in which it is established. This flexibility has resulted in the operational costs necessary to get each college up and running being far higher than was originally expected. These costs vary from college to college because the secret of the success of this program is listening to the regions, the local educators, the local chamber of commerce, the local businessmen and all those who have an interest in establishing the technical colleges. That has been the secret of its success and that is why today we seek to introduce this bill to increase the funding for the colleges.

As the government speakers have rightly outlined, against the railings of the other side, the purpose of the technical colleges is to attract young people back to the trades. It is vital that we do that because it is true to say that Australia is facing a chronic skills shortage—and I will speak on that matter later. But this is a long-term policy to put in place an educational system that attracts young people who, unless the technical colleges had been established, would not otherwise be attracted to the trades. It takes up grades 11 and 12 so that students can advance their apprenticeship in a trade. The Australian technical college initiative offers a new approach to achieving this and forms an important part of the Australian government’s overall strategy in tackling the skills shortages which we are now facing.

The technical colleges will promote trade qualifications as a highly valued alternative to a university degree and will develop a reputation that will show students and parents that vocational education and training in the trades is a secure career, a career in demand, a long-term career and certainly one that has a high rate of return. We initially had a plan to establish 25 colleges. Twenty of those have already signed up and are receiving funding. Over 2,000 students will be educated in a trade and, at its peak, there will be 7,500 students. Those figures are different from those quoted by the other side, but they are the figures: 24 of the 25 Australian technical colleges have been announced; 20 of these have received government funding and all will be fully operational by 2009; 2,000 students are in training and, at its peak, there will be 7,500. This is a policy we announced before the 2004 election. It is now early 2007. It takes time to establish the technical colleges. In fact, the government will say it has been done very quickly, such has been the interest within the local regions and the popularity of the idea to build a new school from the bottom up. There has been absolutely no cooperation from the other side or from the state governments, but the demand has been great from the local communities.

I would say the previous minister, Mr Hardgrave, deserves a medal for the way he went about establishing these particular colleges. The government has acted in haste and the people in local government and their local communities have accepted the establishment of the technical colleges in the region. In fact, many of the regions that missed out lament it to be so. So much so, I would say, that once the 25 are set up, this is the sort of program that will go from 25 to 50 to 100 technical colleges, which of course the other side do not particularly want. If you had listened to the previous speakers, and I particularly single out two of the previous speakers, Senator George Campbell, who is in the chamber now, and Senator Carr who opened up the debate for the government—for the opposition—

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For the government! You can’t take him anywhere, can you?

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Conroy, the Freudian slip there was that Senator Carr was part of the state government as an adviser to the Carr-Kirner government when they abolished the technical colleges in Victoria—

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was the Cain government.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, ask John Cain what he thought of Senator Carr—that it was the Carr-Kirner government; that he interfered in just about every decision that John Cain, as the then Premier, had to make. One of them was the abolition of technical colleges. One of the great mistakes of all state governments was no less than that one in Victoria. Senator Carr led the debate for the opposition on this issue, declaring that they were actually going to support the bill. You would not have thought so if you heard his speech because he railed against the government’s policy of returning the technical colleges. He called it tokenistic, hasty and a stunt. This man stands firmly against the establishment of the technical colleges because he, his party, his philosophy, the left wing in Victoria, were party to the abolition of technical colleges. What a disgrace that decision was when it was made, and what an effect it has had since then: two decades of a lost generation of young people, particularly boys, who could have entered the trades. They were told by the likes of Senator Carr: ‘Go to university; do some mickey mouse course. Go to university—there is more pride in that.’ There was something to be ashamed of in taking up a trade in the eighties and nineties.

I was most surprised to see Senator Campbell get up here and endorse that belief and philosophy and past policy. He is an old unionist, as distinct from Senator Carr, who is nothing but a Trotskyite leftie whose philosophies are stuck in the old world. So to see Senator Campbell get up and also rail against the government policies of technical colleges was most surprising, disappointing and pathetic.

George Campbell (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator George Campbell interjecting—

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Here is an old unionist who benefited from the technical colleges, who probably went to a form of technical college in Northern Ireland himself and who came in here and railed against the philosophy and the principle of trade schools.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Conroy interjecting—

Judith Troeth (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senators Conroy and Campbell, I would appreciate it if you would hear the speaker in silence. Senator McGauran, resume your speech, please.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was making the point that, of all people, Senator Campbell, an old unionist who made his profession and his political career based on defending the workers, the tradies, had come in here and railed against what he knows is a successful program, one that was successful before it was abolished and was an avenue for young people to take up trades. Those young people were the ones who did not want to go to university, who were not suited to university and would get nothing out of university; in fact, they probably never even bothered to go to university. To cut off that lifeline that technical colleges were in the seventies and eighties and to maintain your tirade against it, Senator Campbell, makes you nothing more than a shameless lackey of the Labor Party policy—

George Campbell (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I beg your pardon!

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Acting Deputy President, he is crossing a line there.

The Acting Deputy President:

Stand up then. Do you wish to take a point of order, Senator Campbell?

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think you should just call him to order without us having to take a point of order.

George Campbell (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, I should not need to take a point of order. You should not allow him to use language like that in the chamber.

The Acting Deputy President:

That is verging on unparliamentary remarks, Senator McGauran, and I would like you to withdraw that phrase.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw it. My point was about hearing that from the likes of Senator Campbell, who prides himself on being an old-time unionist. I heard Senator Sterle say that too, but he is nothing of the sort. I will say that Senator Campbell comes from the deepest of union roots, and that probably goes back to Northern Ireland. My point was that he has simply fallen in line behind the Labor Party policy to object to this for the sake of opposition, for the sake of objecting to it simply because it is yet another government reform. There has not been a reform that the other side have not objected to, from our very first term when we sought to balance the budget. They were against balancing budgets. They were against reducing debts. They were against our first tranche of industrial relations reforms. They were against—

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Minister for the Arts and Sport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tax cuts.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am reminded by the new minister that they were even against tax cuts. They are against everything. I could go through the whole list—

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

GST.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You were against the GST, then you were back on board, of course. I could go through a whole litany of reforms, and you have not supported one. Time does not permit but I could identify how each one has been proven a correct policy by the government. We had to make the hard decisions and we had to get them through a hostile Senate, but we stuck to our guns. And I can point to each one of them feeding into an economy that has strength today. To those on the other side I say: you do not get a strong economy unless you manage it responsibly and you make some hard decisions. You seem to think it just appears overnight. It does not.

This is one of the hard decisions we have had to make, and you have railed against it. This might have been the one exception when you could have stood back and said, ‘We agree with the return of the technical colleges. We have a trades shortage, a skills shortage, in this country. It is a good long-term policy. Those politicians of the eighties who abolished it, those state governments—ironically, Labor state governments—who abolished it based on some sort of academic snobbery were wrong. It is 20 years on now and we will return them. We can see the benefit in it.’ In your heart of hearts you know that. That is the foolishness of all this. Senator Carr does not know it; he wants to constantly rewrite history. But Senator Campbell, Senator Conroy and Senator Hutchins—the three Labor Party senators who bothered to turn up in the chamber today—know it to be so but they are maintaining this line that it is not so. What an absurdity you have reached as an opposition.

Having made those points about the debaters on the other side, in the short time I have left I would like to address the issue of the skills shortage. Of course, the Australian technical colleges are one arm of the government’s strategy to tackle the skills shortage. This situation—and things have come to a crisis point now—is a consequence of a successful economy that has grown over the past 10 years. When you have unemployment of some 4.6 per cent—nearing full employment, whatever that magical figure is of full employment—of course you are going to have a tight labour market, and skills such as those of plumbers, electricians, engineers and other experts are going to be hard to find. Quite frankly, a good plumber has been hard to find for a long time, but it is even harder now because most of them are over in Western Australia earning big money. The rate of return for skilled workers now across the board, particularly in the trades, is very high. Just like a decade ago, when accountants were hard to find and people started filling accounting courses at universities, to a degree the market will again solve this problem: it will increase the rate of returns. It will become attractive to take up plumbing as a profession or to become an electrician or a carpenter. The market will attract people into these trades.

Over and above that, the government believe that intervention is necessary and incentive is necessary. To that end, we have introduced a very short-term policy—that is, to increase our migration skills program up to a ceiling of 97,000 new migrants, if that ceiling is able to be filled. There is a skills shortage right across the world and every country is attempting to attract skilled labourers. Australia has increased its skilled migration program as a short-term policy, but, most importantly, we established the Australian Apprenticeships scheme. The Australian Apprenticeships scheme has been a huge success, regardless of what Senator George Campbell said in trying to find fault with it. The success of it is in its figures. When we first came to government, there were only 154,000 apprentices in training. That was the legacy of the previous Labor government. In a decade of giving incentive payments to employers and employees—apprentices—we have lifted that piddly little figure of 154,00 to 400,000 apprentices in training today. That is an enormous success. With the technical colleges, that figure can only go higher.

Added to that, late last year the government announced its work skills voucher system to attract older and more mature workers back to the trades to take up an apprenticeship. It provides for those who left school in year 12, who probably looked for a tech college and would have gone to tech college but did not find one, and who would not go to university. They are exactly the type we will pick up under this new policy. The generation coming up will find a tech college to go to. Under this policy, we are introducing a voucher system so that those who are unskilled and left school at year 12 will be able to collect a voucher from the government and take up training in a skill. It is for people 25 years old and over. Mature, unemployed and unskilled people can take up this new government voucher system. That is a tremendous initiative.

Of course, we do not expect credit from the other side, but we do not expect damnation either. The other side should show some national interest. Is there anything in the national interest you will support from this side of government? You lost the majority in the Senate on the grounds you were obstructionist for 10 years—you ought to wake up to that. We did not receive the majority at the last election for no reason at all. The public could quite easily see you were obstructionist for the sake of obstruction. This is one particular area where one would think you could come to the party but, no, you decide not to.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are voting for this.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sure, at the end of the day, you are going to vote for this bill. It is inconsequential. You spend all your broadcast time railing against the government’s introduction of technical colleges. It is senseless. It is mindless. It is trying to hold onto some—

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Julian, we are voting for it.

The Acting Deputy President:

Order!

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am happy to take the interjection if it is of any intelligence at all, Madam Acting Deputy President.

The Acting Deputy President:

Please proceed with your speech, Senator McGauran. Are you finished?

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thought you were sitting me down.

The Acting Deputy President:

You have 55 seconds left.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In that 55 seconds, I urge the Senate to support this bill, not just in voting patterns. Stand up for it. Senator Hutchins, you are the next speaker. You have some balance and sense that the others obviously do not carry. I appeal to you. We are happy to take a bit of flak if it is based on some fact and we will even take a bit of political flak if you decide to throw it our way. In essence, could you acknowledge in principle that the technical colleges ought to be re-established and that they are a good thing?

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will try to inject that balance that Senator McGauran has invited me to do. But, first of all, I refer to the allegation that Senator George Campbell is a Trotskyite. I have known Senator George Campbell for 30-odd years and—

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I raise a point of order, Madam Acting Deputy President. That is a gross misrepresentation. I meant Senator Carr. Everyone knows Senator Carr is the Troskyite. It could not be more wrong to say it is Senator George Campbell. If I did say Senator Campbell, I withdraw.

The Acting Deputy President:

There is no point of order. I made rulings to allow you to deliver your words in silence and I would ask you to extend the courtesy to Senator Hutchins.

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The point is that, as I said, Senator George Campbell has never been a Trotskyite. I know Senator McGauran has tried to correct the record now. Senator Campbell has probably been many things, but he did draw the line at that. I am also aware that Senator Campbell was an apprentice on the shipyards in Northern Ireland. I think he may have served one of the longest apprenticeships because of his political and industrial activity at the time. Nevertheless, he did get apprenticed and did come to Australia and make a fine contribution to our political and industrial life.

In speaking to the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2006 I would like to raise some significant concerns about the nature of this bill and about this country’s future as a skilled nation. The bill seeks to increase the funding allocation to the government’s 25 Australian technical colleges by around $100 million.

In principle, Labor supports the funding of vocational training in this country. But this bill and the government’s policy approach represent a political solution to a very real problem. I question this government’s commitment to vocational education in Australia. I question it on the basis that it has been one of the most neglected sectors in education for the past 10 years. I question it because we have faced a very clear shortage in key skills over the past few years and the other side refuse to even acknowledge the seriousness of the situation.

Australia stands in the grip of a very profitable commodities boom. We are in the midst of a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make the most of the growing demand for our natural resources. As the record profits from mining companies keep rolling in, so the business tax revenues keep lining the coffers of the government. We have seen massive surpluses almost entirely off the back of this boom.

A government with foresight would have had the wisdom to make use of this extraordinary period to reinvest that revenue so that we could lay the groundwork for our future prosperity, because anyone with common sense will tell you there is always an end to a boom, and we need to make sure that, when that comes, it will be a transition to a new stage in our economic development, rather than a drop in our fiscal health. What we have seen from this government, however, indicates that they have no such foresight. I fear the opportunities we had now lie squandered because the coalition has been too complacent and too driven by ideology to adequately address the challenges of the future.

In particular, I make reference to the skills shortage that currently grips Australia. The government is eager to pin this shortage entirely on the mining and commodities industries in Western Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland. And, of course, the strength of the sector in those regions is attracting many of the country’s skilled workers—mechanics, truck drivers, engineers, miners, even plumbers—but it is not the only cause for the shortage we face.

If we were to indulge in an exercise of finger pointing, we would have to take aim squarely at this government. After 10 long years of the coalition, there is still no optimism from industry as to Australia turning around its skills shortage.

Dan O’Toole, the head of Coffey Mining, told the Australian Journal of Mining earlier last year that the lack of skilled employees is eating away at the profitability of Australian companies. He said:

We believe the problem will become so bad that public companies will eventually be required to report to the ASX on issues such as succession planning and sustainability of their professional staffing. This will be seen as a significant factor in determining the profit viability and capital growth value of a company.

Mr O’Toole talked specifically about the difficulty in recruiting engineers, with some companies spending up to 12 months to find a candidate, and the all too familiar overseas recruitment from China, India, Turkey, Canada or Zambia. This all, of course, comes at a significant cost. And that is just one example.

The scale of the skills shortage is huge: the Australian Industry Group estimates that to fill the current demand we need an additional 270,000 trained people. The February skilled vacancies index showed that vacancies had risen by 6.1 per cent over the past year. The information and communications technology sector, which has seen a decline in personnel since the dotcom bust, recorded a 35.1 per cent increase in vacancies since February 2006, the highest point since August 2001. The Reserve Bank of Australia has continually pointed to capacity constraints as a key contributing factor to inflationary pressures. Business is butting up against a labour market that cannot meet its needs simply because it does not hold the skills.

Despite these obvious barriers to the expansion and sustained profitability of Australian business, the government’s response has been woefully inadequate. Surely if we have such a dire skills shortage, the reasonable thing to do would be to invest in the education and vocational skills infrastructure we already have in this country. Our TAFE schools have the staff and expertise to be leading the way in vocational training in Australia. Instead of investing in this valuable resource, the government has ignored it. We have seen 325,000 people turned away from TAFE because there were not the funds to accommodate them.

Australia is the only country in the OECD to have actually disinvested in its education and training. Over the long decade of the Howard government, Australia has gone backwards in its spending on universities and vocational education by some seven per cent. Comparable countries in the OECD have increased their spending by almost 50 per cent over that same period.

We are being overtaken not only by OECD countries but also by developing countries like China and India, who are beating us on the skilling of their workforces. They are turning out engineers and scientists from their universities at a rate we could only dream of, and it is helping to stoke and sustain the economic growth these countries are experiencing.

Despite the obvious solution presenting itself—that is, to commit to investing in Australia’s education and training—the government has sat idle for 10 years. Its greatest endeavour to solve the skills crisis has been to allow an explosion in 457 visas, which permit holders to enter Australia for up to four years. They do not have to hold specific skills; they do not even have to be able to read and comprehend safety signs; they can be paid below award rates and exploited by unscrupulous bosses. The government has said we need to solve the skills crisis, so we will make it easier for employers to bring in 457 workers. But the fairly sordid track record of that program has shown it goes nowhere towards fixing the skills crisis we have but goes towards creating a crisis of its own. The government would rather import workers than train Australians. The government prefers a short-term, stopgap measure to a long-term commitment to the skilling of our country’s workforce.

That brings me to the Australian technical colleges the government is building around Australia. We on this side have long pointed to the inefficiencies in the ATC system, quite simply because it seeks to duplicate the vocational training infrastructure we already have. TAFE still delivers around 70 per cent of the skills training in Australia and would be capable of more if only this government recognised its important role and funded it accordingly. But it cannot seem to overcome its ideological opposition to the TAFE system, nor can it get past the blame game and cooperate with the states.

Nationwide, the ATCs will only have 7,500 students by 2009. Faced with an immediate shortfall of 275,000 skilled workers, there would need to be 37 times this number of students to catch up. Seven thousand five hundred students in ATCs represent around two per cent of the number of prospective trainees turned away from TAFE colleges over the past decade. Faced with a yawning gap of a quarter of a million skilled people in the present workforce, the government proudly boasts that it will deliver three per cent of that shortfall by 2009.

I would like to focus, in particular, on Western Sydney, where I am based and where there is significant demand for vocational training in trades. I was extremely disappointed that, despite the rhetoric associated with the ATCs, it seems the government has very little intention of seriously delivering skills based education in Western Sydney. The ATC for my home region is based at Rouse Hill Anglican College and will, for 2007, offer 25 places. The promise is that this will expand to 150 by next year, but that is conditional on the selection of a site, which has yet to be finalised, the construction of the buildings and the development of a curriculum. Even the CEO of Sydney Anglican Schools Corporation, Dr Laurie Scandrett, is on the record as saying that opening the ATC by 2008 would be ‘ambitious’.

One ATC for Western Sydney is a joke. This is a region that contains 14 local governments, 150 of Australia’s top 500 businesses and around two million people. It is one of the largest economies in the country, contributing one-third of the gross regional product of New South Wales, with a massive industrial base perched on major transport corridors like the M7, M4 and M2 motorways. A quarter of the Western Sydney workforce is employed in the manufacturing and construction industries. And to service the skills needs of Western Sydney, to train the thousands of young people wanting to learn a traditional trade, the government offers up an ATC at Rouse Hill with 25 places, possibly growing to 150 if the permanent facility can be started and completed by next year!

Just by way of comparison, the University of Western Sydney in 2004 had more than 34,000 enrolments; South Western Sydney Institute of TAFE had 76,000 in 2005; and the Western Sydney Institute of TAFE in 2005 had more than 87,000 students enrolled. And in Western Sydney we get one college with 25 places! Adelaide, with a population half that of Western Sydney, at least has two of these technical colleges. What does a 16-year-old year 11 student in Penrith do if he or she wants to get a place in the Western Sydney ATC? The last time I checked, there were not many school buses headed to Rouse Hill from Penrith, so it would fall on the parents to make the 40-minute journey to and from the college. The same goes for students in Campbelltown or Liverpool, who are about 50 kilometres away.

We know the coalition is not really interested in doing anything long term about the skills crisis, and now we know it is not really interested in helping young people in Western Sydney train to be tradespeople. All it seems to want to do is pay lip-service to both. The warnings from industry and from the Reserve Bank are out there, as they have been for the past several years—and they are grim: train young Australians or we will continue to be crippled by a skills shortage; close the gap or business will be hamstrung by the constraint in capacity and see it eat into long-term profitability; broaden the skills base of Australians or see continued inflationary pressure and further rises, as indicated by Glenn Stevens last week, in interest rates; put the focus back on skilling Australia or fall behind every other competitor nation, both developed and developing.

The coalition’s response has been a disinvestment in education of seven per cent over the last 10 years, a reliance on overseas workers who do not necessarily fill the shortages we have, and a series of technical colleges that duplicate the services already available from TAFE and will ultimately deliver less than three per cent of the skilled workers we need to cover the gap. We deserve more. We need the government to pay far more attention than they have previously.

Annette Hurley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like first of all to talk about the Australian technical college that has been established in the northern suburbs of Adelaide. The northern suburbs of Adelaide is an area of very high youth unemployment, often about double the state average. It is an area where training for job skilling is desperately needed. I am very pleased indeed that a technical college has been set up in the northern suburbs. This college is well supported by the local area. It was established by a consortium comprising the Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide in partnership with the Northern Adelaide Industry Group, which includes leading manufacturing and industrial companies in the area—Steel Building Systems Pty Ltd, Hirotec Australia, ZF Lemforder Australia and the RAAF Workforce Development Unit—as well as employment and group training organisations. It is currently housed in temporary quarters—an old council depot at Elizabeth, which is nevertheless quite a useful facility—and it is under Principal Rob Thomas, who, if I am not mistaken, was deputy principal at St Columba College, where my son went to school, which is also out in the northern suburbs.

There are a number of other job training and support facilities in the area. Indeed, just last week I went to one that was set up by the Boys Town group. It operates at the TAFE campus at Elizabeth under the management of Trevor Grant, whom I have known for a long time. He has been working in the northern suburbs in the area of employment for both the federal government and other organisations. He is well experienced in this area. They concentrate on helping children who otherwise would probably have fallen through the cracks in the schooling system. They concentrate on a number of areas before they even think about further education—including literacy, numeracy and social stability—because it is certainly very difficult for any student to study and think about long-term prospects if they do not even have a home to go to or if the home they are in is fraught with violence, instability and poverty. They have the ability to deal with these issues in conjunction with their partner organisations as well as encouraging their students to go on to further education, preferably, or to jobs, possibly.

This illustrates the problem that we have to deal with. We are not dealing with straight educational opportunities. It is true that the resources boom and other economic factors have created a jump in employment. Frankly, that means we are talking about a harder cohort of students who would not necessarily have completed their education or gone on to further education. We need to think a bit more carefully about what is required and how we get them to fill the skills shortages that have developed in Australia. Many government members have talked about a labour shortage rather than a skills shortage. There may be some justification for that, but you still have to ask: what has the Liberal government been doing for the past 10 years to address the labour shortage, the participation rate and the skills shortage caused by students not going on to further education? The answer to that question, quite patently, is that the government has been doing things that are similar to the Australian technical colleges initiative. It is a good initiative on its own; it fills a particular niche and it is useful. But it is one of those things that the government does not do until the last minute, when there is a desperate need. It plugs the gap with an influx of money, of which this bill is a part; plugging in a bit more money to fill a problem.

Time and time again we have seen this approach across the range of government activities, particularly in education and training: you reach a crisis, put in a short-term solution and hope for the best. It is this government’s focus on short-term solutions—indeed, often political fixes—that has created a lot of serious problems for us in skills shortages and training. Successive education ministers have waited until it is a real political problem. They have tried to curry favour with the electorate by attacking teachers and bullying state governments. They have tried to deflect criticism and they have tried to deflect attention away from the inadequacies of the system by putting in place things like a requirement for schools to fly flags or put up posters of Simpson and his donkey and things like that. There is nothing wrong with those things in themselves, but they do nothing to seriously address our education problems.

This happens not only in schools but in tertiary education as well. We had Brendan Nelson interfering with the giving out of research grants and so on. The Howard government has continued its approach, from when it first took government, of ripping funding out of education. Underfunding has continued and it has never quite caught up after that dreadful blow that the government dealt to education when it first got into government. The Liberal government seems to have a chronic inability to put plans in place for the future in large and important areas like education and training, and that is a great shame for this country. It is a long-lasting legacy of this government that it is unable to grapple with these complex problems.

On 20 February the Productivity Commission released a report on the potential benefits of a national reform agenda. The report illustrates to some extent the approach which might have been taken by the Howard Liberal government if it had had a strategic approach to education and training. It illustrates what we might have achieved if state and Commonwealth governments had worked together to get some improvement in education and training. The report’s proposed approach under the national reform agenda would pull together a number of strands that affect education, including early childhood development, literacy and numeracy, transition from school to work or further study, and adult learning. The Productivity Commission understands the intermeshing of the many different factors in education and skills training—something this government does not seem to be able to do in its own strategic deliberations.

The Productivity Commission states, under ‘Key points’ in the section headed ‘Education and training’:

• If outer-envelope NRA-induced educational attainments could be achieved, it is estimated that by 2030:

–   workforce participation could increase by up to 0.7 percentage points; and

–   aggregate labour productivity could increase by up to 1.2 per cent.

Those are all very important key outcomes that this government should have been looking for. We have had minister after minister lambast the education system for outcome driven education, but it is a pity that the Howard government did not have a few outcomes of its own to strive for such as these. It might have achieved them in its 10 years of government if it had not been fixated on short-term solutions. We need this kind of approach: a concerted whole-of-government approach to fixing problems right from early childhood development, including those problems that children have with literacy and numeracy. We are never going to make skilled apprentices of students who have severe literacy and numeracy problems. It sounds so straightforward and simple, but the government provides a short, dirty fix on skills training while not paying enough attention to the other end, where children are coming through school, to ensure that they have adequately fixed many children’s literacy and numeracy problems.

It is important to look at the overall aspects of education and not concentrate only on skills training. In this debate we have had a lot of emphasis, quite naturally, on the importance of apprenticeships and training in skills that are in short supply. There is no question in my mind that skilled boilermakers, skilled fitters and turners, skilled plumbers and skilled hospitality workers are worth their weight in gold in terms of advancing our economy and that we do indeed need such people. But we also need tertiary educated people and we also need people in unskilled jobs who are satisfied in those jobs and are able to fulfil the criteria of those jobs.

I briefly want to go back to tertiary education. Statistics show that those in the northern suburbs of Adelaide, where we have an Australian technical college—and that is a good thing; we fixed that—are underrepresented in tertiary education. I want to see opportunities for everyone. If they have the desire to go into an apprenticeship for a trade, I absolutely agree that they should have that pathway available. But the evidence is that students from the northern suburbs are having trouble getting into tertiary education as well. The member for Wakefield, Mr David Fawcett, in talking about the initial bill for Australian technical colleges, said:

Trades should be valued as a first choice. Too often over the last 10 years—and, in fact, even before that—we have had career counsellors, teachers and other people say to students that if they do not complete year 12 and go to university then they are somehow a second-class citizen.

That is very true, but you are not a second-class citizen if you go to university. We need not only apprentices but also engineers to guide them and managers to guide them, and directors of companies and people who create the products that those tradesmen and tradeswomen make. I think there is a great deal of talent amongst the people in the northern suburbs who are not making it into tertiary education. I call on this government to pay some attention to the fact that many academically talented students in the northern suburbs are still not getting into the university courses that they should be getting into. It is no good for anyone to think that, because the northern suburbs of Adelaide are a low-income area, they produce just factory and unskilled labour fodder. They have also produced—and could produce more—tertiary educated people of great value to the Australian economy. The government must, as the Rudd opposition is doing, look at the entire field of education to make education a priority for Australia and to give the opportunity to all Australians to go into whichever field of endeavour they feel is appropriate to them. Clearly, that is not happening in the northern suburbs of Adelaide at the moment.

Dana Wortley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2006. In doing so, I share the concerns already highlighted by my Labor colleagues in this chamber and in the House. While this bill appropriates funds to Australian technical colleges, we have some reservations about how effective this allocation will be. This is the second amendment to the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Act 2005.

The bill before us today seeks to increase the total funding appropriated under the act from $343.6 million to $456.2 million over the 2005-09 period. The government claims the increase of $112.6 million that we are dealing with today is needed because of cost increases associated with the start-up and operation of the colleges. The reality is that this is a significant cost blow-out in the government’s Australian technical colleges program. Obviously, it has not gone to plan. The colleges are behind schedule and the government have, without proper planning, pushed many of the ATCs to open on temporary sites. I understand that issues regarding registration and curriculum are in many cases still not resolved. Why have the government pushed to have the ATCs open when some are clearly not adequately prepared? Could it be because it is an election year?

We have serious concerns regarding the skills crisis we are facing today in Australia. The people of Australia have serious concerns. Parents are concerned that their children have not been able to gain entry to TAFE colleges or to other existing trade training. Industry is concerned that it is not able to access skilled workers. We will continue to be faced with these problems because of this government’s inadequate funding and its inaction in providing apprenticeships, training and adequate further education places for our young people.

For more than 10 long years, the Howard government has failed to deliver appropriate levels of skills training. It has neglected the skills required for our workforce. We have Australian business and industry sending recruitment personnel overseas to recruit skilled and highly trained staff to assist in addressing our skills shortages. This government must stop playing the blame game and accept responsibility for the skills crisis in Australia today. It must accept responsibility because it failed to commit to our young people who wanted to learn a trade. This government has delivered 10 long years of neglect in our TAFE system—the main institution for the education and training for vocational occupations in this country. Under the Howard government in the past eight years, more than 325,000 potential students have been turned away from the TAFE system. That is 325,000 Australians who have effectively been denied access to skills training that would have provided them with a skilled job for which they could have expected long-term employment opportunities—and industry and business could have expected skilled workers.

During the 2004 election campaign, the Prime Minister launched the Australian technical colleges policy to fix the skills crisis because it had become apparent to the Australian community that there was a problem. It had become a political issue in the same way that climate change has become an issue in the community. For years we had a government in denial, sceptical about climate change, but the political pressure has been put on because it is an election year and the government is again faced with making policy on the run.

In relation to vocational and further education and training in Australia, I make this comment: in my own state of South Australia three technical colleges have only just opened their doors in the last couple of weeks, although not all have permanent homes yet. I understand that the three technical colleges in South Australia combined have a total enrolment for this year of 270 students. According to the government’s claims, Australian technical colleges across Australia will create 7,500 places over four years. We know that this will not solve Australia’s skills crisis.

Educators have also raised concerns about the retention rates of students entering the ATCs because, with the workload demands placed on the students, there is the possibility of students leaving before they have completed their course. The academic workload, the training and the average eight-hour weekly industry placement, which may also be taken as block training, is a heavy workload for 16- and 17-year-olds. And when they complete their ATC training they will have only completed the first year of a three- or four-year apprenticeship. Given this, it is likely that the government’s target of 7,500 places over four years will not be met, because it is based on the assumption that every student who starts at an ATC will complete their course. This just will not happen.

The TAFE system has doubled in size since 1995, yet federal government funding has fallen in real terms. Martin Riordan, the Executive Director of TAFE Directors Australia, which represents Australia’s 55 TAFE institutes, believes the government was wrong not to use the TAFE network as the base for the new ATCs. He has also called on the government to integrate the ATC network into the TAFE system, asking that the Commonwealth review the progress of the ATCs at the Council of Australian Governments meeting in April, and with good reason. In 2005 alone, the unmet demand for education and training places in TAFE institutes was 34,200. That is 34,200 people who wanted a place but could not get one. In the same year, the unmet demand in the whole of the vocational education training sector was 45,100. These are not just figures; these are 45,100 real people with real families who wanted to embark on training to gain skills who were turned away. This government should be working cooperatively with the states and increasing funding for programs that are already established and are working. These people should not have been turned away.

There have been concerns raised about the overall impact on the institutions already up and running in the TAFE and VET sectors which could be providing the skills training, but instead we have huge sums of money going into the government’s new ATC system. The average expenditure for each student who goes through the Australian technical colleges will exceed by thousands of dollars the average expenditure for each student in TAFE. In addition to the set-up and operational costs that we are discussing here today, Australian technical colleges are entitled to all of the funding available to schools under the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Act 2004. They are also entitled to general recurrent funding per student, most of them at the non-government school rate. They will also have available to them targeted funding for special programs and capital funding. But it does not end there: the ATCs will also receive the relevant state funding. The ATCs will receive all this while the Howard government fails to make a general commitment to our existing TAFE system.

Stephen Smith, the member for Perth and Labor’s shadow minister for education and training, got it right when he said that the skills shortage in this country:

... will only be resolved by a much greater investment in education generally. It will only be resolved by a much greater investment in further technical and vocational education and training, but making that investment on behalf of the Commonwealth, in conjunction with the states, using facilities that are currently available—refurbishing and enhancing them. We need agreement between the states and the Commonwealth about priorities and agreement with industry about what the skills needs will be down the track. That is the only sensible way forward in this area, and that will be the approach that Labor adopts in opposition and, subsequently, in government.

It is of concern that this government has failed to adequately fund our existing structures. When the first student graduates from an ATC in 2009, they will still only graduate with the first year of an apprenticeship—the first year of three or four. This too is of concern, because Australian industry cannot wait.

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In speaking to the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2006, I would like to firstly acknowledge the very excellent contribution made by my colleague Senator George Campbell, who outlined the failure of this government to address the skills crisis and, in doing so, attracted the ire of Senator Ian Macdonald. I can understand that. This is a touchy subject for the government. They do not like to be reminded of the absolute inadequacy of their response to the crisis we face. It is a crisis that they ignored until the last federal election, in 2004, with the creation of the Australian technical colleges program—a decision that was not based on sound public policy; it was simply a political fix. Now Senator Ian Macdonald has tried to put a positive spin on the overwhelming evidence put forward today by Senator George Campbell. I suppose he believes that this is his job, but he failed. Why did Senator Ian Macdonald fail? Because the evidence is indeed overwhelming and the policy failure of this government is there for all to see. They have been exposed.

This bill appropriates additional funding of $112.6 million for the government’s Australian technical colleges over the period 2006 to 2009, bringing the total funding to $456.2 million over the period 2005 to 2009, nearly half a billion dollars. Labor have indicated that we will be supporting this bill as a matter of principle because any expenditure by the government to enhance vocational education and training and skills is welcome.

However, we have made it clear throughout this debate and with our second reading amendment that this government has sat on its hands. The government have neglected skills training and have presided over a skills crisis—complacent in their inactivity until it dawned on them in 2004 that they needed to do something because of repeated calls from Labor, industry and the sector. But, unfortunately, their response has been inadequate. They continue to fail to make the necessary investment needed to address the skills crisis.

They have refused to cooperate with the states, preferring to wait until around 2010-12 for these Australian technical colleges to produce one single qualified tradesperson. By that time, as has been projected by the Australian Industry Group, Australia’s skills shortage will mean hundreds of thousands of vacancies. But the government is content to see, at best, around 7½ thousand tradespeople graduate at a cost of nearly half a billion. This is their effort to relieve the nation’s dire skills shortage.

Labor retains strong reservations about the effectiveness of the Australian technical colleges program and its capacity to genuinely combat the severe shortage of skilled labour in the country. The legitimacy of such reservations is nowhere better reflected than in the current situation unfolding in my home state of Tasmania, where the establishment of technical colleges in the north, and particularly the north-west of the state, has done nothing at all to address the severe shortage of skilled labour in such regions. The ineffectiveness of the colleges in these areas to address the problem confirms what Labor has been suggesting for some time: the technical college program was a bandaid, short-term, tokenistic, political reaction to a long-term, practical problem faced by this country.

Indeed, the establishment of colleges in marginal federal electorates, such as in the north and the north-west of Tasmania, appears to be more of a political stunt to secure votes rather than a genuine, well thought-out attempt to address the severe shortage of skilled labour in such regions. What is the result? Regional cities, such as Burnie on the north-west coast of Tasmania, are left struggling to fill job vacancies in areas such as construction and manufacturing, which the technical colleges were established to address. Indeed, the situation in Burnie provides a perfect illustration of the complete ineffectiveness of the technical colleges to address the skills shortage in Tasmania.

The city, which during the early nineties experienced one of the highest rates of unemployment in the nation due to the closure of the APPM paper-making mill, is now experiencing a period of excitement, renewal and increased investment. However, the city’s capacity to find its feet and move forward has been stunted by the shortage of skilled labour in the region. A city council member, during an interview with the ABC last year, noted that local employers were having great difficulty filling positions and there was an immediate need for 300 to 400 skilled labourers in the city.

Such sentiments are supported by figures revealed in a survey of the region completed by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations in September 2006. The survey found that 50 per cent of employers in the region had difficulty filling vacancies, with 13 per cent of vacancies at the time remaining unfilled. Recruitment difficulties were most prominent in construction and manufacturing industries, with the lack of necessary training and skills being the main reason why applicants were unsuitable and the positions remained unfilled.

What a debacle! Here is a city that is trying to move forward, with employers desperate for workers to fill positions, yet it still experiences a higher unemployment rate than the rest of the state because applicants lack the skills and training necessary to fill the positions. The technical college campus located in the city is unlikely to make any difference to the current situation in the short term, with fewer than 100 enrolments for the current year. The Australian technical colleges program has so far failed to combat the severe skills shortage in north-west Tasmania, a situation that is not likely to improve in the near future. The government’s decision to opt for this short-term, bandaid solution to the problem is not only failing to overcome the skills shortage; it is preventing regional—

Debate interrupted.