Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

SKILLS AUSTRALIA BILL 2008

The Skills Australia Bill 2008 is an important piece of legislation.  It will establish Skills Australia, a statutory body that will provide the Australian Government with independent, high quality advice to assist us to target government investment in training.  It will give the Australian Government advice that we can use to assist businesses and workers across the country.

Skills Australia is an important part of our fight to reduce the skills shortages that have plagued business.  It is part of the way forward in fighting inflation.  It is an integral piece of the Australian Government’s five point plan to fight against inflation.  This is a plan that addresses both the demand side and supply side pressures on inflation.

Under this plan the Australian Government will firstly ensure that we take the pressure off demand by running a strong budget surplus, through a hard-line attitude to fiscal restraint.

Secondly, in the period ahead the Australian Government will examine all options to provide real incentives to encourage private savings.

Thirdly, we will be unfolding our plan for tackling chronic skills shortages in the economy.  I will talk more about this shortly.

Fourthly, we will provide national leadership to tackle infrastructure bottlenecks.

And fifthly, we will provide practical ways of helping people re-enter the workforce including removing disincentives to work and helping increase workforce participation.

By exercising fiscal restraint our plan aims to do everything we can to ease the pressure on inflation.  Our plan deals with the chronic investment deficits in the capacity side of the economy, particularly investment in skills and infrastructure.  The skills agenda is clearly a vital part of this broad whole of government plan.

In the past, too much reliance has been placed on disconnected pieces of the skills puzzle.  My Government recognises that we need a holistic policy focussed on workforce development to make sure individuals have the skills to be productive workers in a fast-changing economy.

Workforce development is a comprehensive approach to addressing skills and labour shortages.  It addresses the supply side issues and includes the essential elements of training, in concert with workforce planning, to ensure the right intervention and investments happen at the right time.  This is everyone’s business, not just the business of government.

The Australian Government will continue to align skills development policies and training delivery with industry priorities, and to position the training system to better meet the needs of individuals and industry.  We will work with the state and territory governments to ensure that they are also travelling in the same direction.

Training organisations must be encouraged to play their part and respond flexibly to increasingly diverse industry and individual needs.  Training providers must deliver customised, relevant training that is integrated with, and supported by, workplace learning opportunities, at a time and place that suit business needs.

I also encourage businesses, as a core part of their strategic business planning, to gain a better understanding of the essential links between the skills and career development needs of their workforce, and improved profitability and sustainability.  Businesses must have human resource management strategies linked with their recruitment, training and career strategies.

Individuals also have a responsibility to recognise the benefits of gaining qualifications and commit to invest in and add to their own skills sets throughout their working lives.

My Government has also committed to the skills agenda through the Council of Australian Governments (COAG).  At my Government’s first COAG meeting, in December 2007, all governments in Australia agreed to work together on increasing the productive capacity of the economy, addressing the inflationary pressures that are emerging and delivering higher quality services to the Australian community.

It is only with a long term productivity agenda that we can hope to achieve simultaneously high economic growth, low unemployment and low inflation.

There are many shared and real benefits to be achieved by working together.  We can expect a better return on publicly funded training investment.  We can also increase the capacity of enterprises to adopt high-performance work practices that increase productivity through supporting their employees to realise their potential.

Equally beneficial will be the enhanced capacity of individuals to participate effectively in the workforce.  Training providers will have an increased capacity to assist enterprises, particularly small to medium size enterprises, to adopt workforce planning strategies, assess and act on skills development and training needs and change work practices.

The Skilling Australia for the Future policy released by the Australian Government prior to the election is the start of the journey.  No one approach or any one government or agency on its own can solve the skills and labour shortage problems we are experiencing today and will continue to face in the future.  We have to accept a shared responsibility for building a flexible, well-skilled workforce that will ensure that Australia remains productive, competitive and prosperous.

This Bill establishes a vital element of our skills strategy - Skills Australia.  It will provide the Australian Government with independent, high quality advice to assist with better targeting of support for the workforce development needs of businesses and workers across the country.

Skills Australia will be comprised of seven experts drawn from a range of backgrounds including economics, industry, academia and training providers.  It represents an intellectual as well as a financial investment in the skills agenda.

Skills Australia will:

• analyse current and emerging skills needs and forecast demands across industry sectors;
• assess evidence from commissioned research and industry stakeholders to inform Australia’s workforce development needs;
• widely distribute information from research and consultations with stakeholders to enable entrepreneurs, businesses and workers to have the necessary information to inform their training and employment decisions;
• provide the Government with recommendations on current and future skills needs to help inform decisions to encourage skills formation and drive ongoing reforms to the education and training sector, including on priorities for the investment of public funds; and
• establish and maintain relationships with relevant state bodies and authorities to inform its advice on current and future demand for skills and facilitate alignment of priorities for responses to skills needs.

The Skills Australia legislation establishes the operational arrangements to support the independent body, including provisions relating to conflict of interest issues, arrangements for the appointment and service of members, remuneration of its members, procedures about its conduct and arrangements for working groups to provide it with the capacity to investigate issues deeply, drawing on a wider range of stakeholders.

As an interim measure, while the legislation is being taken through Parliament, I am establishing the Skills Australia Implementation Group.  It is intended that this group will meet for the first time in February.  This group of eminent Australians will oversee consultations with key business, employer and employee association stakeholders as well as state and territory governments regarding the establishment of Skills Australia.

Skills Australia will play a pivotal role in boosting productivity and participation in the Australian economy by providing high quality advice to the Government.  This will ensure that policies can be directed towards closing the skills gap – the gap between the demand for and supply of skilled workers.

Our Skilling Australia for the Future policy will increase and deepen the skills capacity of the Australian workforce and ensure demand for skills and skills training is matched.  My Government’s plan for our future skilled workforce will close the skills gap in the Australian economy in three key ways:

Firstly, by funding an additional 450,000 training places over the next four years.  Over the last three years the Reserve Bank of Australia has warned on more than 20 separate occasions that capacity constraints – including skills shortages – were contributing to inflation.  The Australian Government is acting promptly by making 20,000 new training places for those outside the workforce available from April 2008.  This will help many Australians gain employment and stimulate workforce participation rates.

Secondly, by ensuring that most of these places lead to a higher level qualification, such as at the Certificate III level or above.  The new places will offer high-quality training opportunities which better suit the needs of our economy in the future.  Evidence shows that Australia’s economy needs higher level skills and key employer groups – including the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Industry Group - agree.

Thirdly, and of great importance, we are placing industry demand at the heart of the skills training system – so that training providers equip Australians with the skills that industry needs.

Part of the problem in increasing our national skills levels has been that training has not sufficiently matched industry’s needs.  Businesses have not been provided with enough assistance to enable them to diagnose, predict and tailor training to their future workforce needs.

The Australian Government’s major reforms will also help with better diagnosis of Australia’s skills needs and make new training places more responsive to industry needs.

New training places will be allocated according to industry demand.  Drawing on the advice of Skills Australia, strengthened Industry Skills Councils will connect employers to the new training places.  Industry Skills Councils will work with employers to identify their skills needs and match those needs with nationally accredited training.

Industry Skills Councils will also work with Employment Service Providers to give people outside the workforce access to training which matches industry and employers’ needs.  Australia’s training system must shift to a system that is driven by, and which responds to, the needs of business, industry and the economy.

More than one-third of the additional places will be allocated to people currently outside or marginally attached to the workforce, to equip them with the skills they need to gain employment.  The remaining places will be targeted at training people who are currently employed but who need to upgrade their skills.  Skilling Australia for the Future will also support up to 65,000 apprenticeships over the next four years.

Skills Australia will provide the Government with advice about areas of skills shortages.  Without wishing to preempt their advice, there are some clearly identified areas of skills shortages we can anticipate.  For example, the mining and construction sectors are likely to be prime candidates.

The mining industry is currently experiencing the highest vacancy to employment ratio, with around 3.7 vacancies for every 100 people employed in the industry.  Wages growth is strongest in the mining industry, at 5.4 per cent through the year to the September quarter 2007, compared to 4.2 per cent across all industries.

The construction industry is also experiencing labor constraints.  Wages growth in construction is at 4.8 per cent through the year to September 2007.  The industry also has the highest proportion of employees with a certificate as their highest qualification, at 45.7 percent.  This means that it will benefit greatly from additional training places at diploma and above levels.

The Skills Australia Bill is the first element of the Australian Government’s policy framework to fight inflation by addressing skill shortages.  We are “Skilling Australia for the Future”.  It is a challenging plan that requires all parties to make an active contribution.  It is only with all stakeholders actively engaged in the skills agenda that we can focus on our outcomes – to increase the productive capacity of the economy through a more highly-skilled workforce.  The result will be an Australia where the career aspirations of individuals are recognised, nurtured and rewarded.

I commend the Bill to the Senate.

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The opposition will not be opposing the Skills Australia Bill 2008. Anything that will assist in the skilling of our nation is a good thing, but I might just make a few broad observations. I note what the Minister for Education, Ms Gillard, said in her second reading speech. Indeed, I have listened enough to my Labor colleagues haranguing the former coalition government for presiding over skills shortages and not doing enough, allegedly, to solve the problem. I have been in the Senate long enough to know there are two sorts of problems: there are good problems and there are bad problems. A bad problem was when the last Labor government had not enough work and too many people looking for jobs. We had a million people unemployed. That is a bad problem. The problem we have today in this country is too much work for not enough people. We have a labour shortage or a so-called skills crisis. That is a good problem. What do working families need most of all? They need work, and at least during the coalition government there were record levels of employment—higher than there had ever been in this nation. Under the previous Labor government, of course, more than one million people were unemployed. There were working families without any work.

There is a double irony in the current rhetoric of Ms Gillard and the Labor government. It is not just that during their last stint in government they did not seem to be too interested in jobs but, rather, they were not too interested in skills either. When Labor were last in government, between 1983 and 1996, they spoke a lot about higher education and promoted the idea that many more Australians should go to university—and I agree with them. I would be the last person to say that is not a good idea. I probably spent too much time there myself. However, it is also extremely important that Australians who, for all sorts of reasons, might not wish to go to university can pick up a trade and technical education. I think one of the great failings of the Hawke-Keating years was the disservice to those seeking a technical education and a trade. The previous Labor government did not do enough.

However, under the Howard government much was done. Under the Labor Party, men and women who today are in their late 20s or indeed 30s, who should have been undertaking apprenticeships or studying at TAFE in the late eighties or early nineties, often did not because of the Labor Party’s seeming denigration of a trade career. What happened was that there was a major gap in our skilled workforce, and these people are Labor’s lost generation of tradesmen and tradeswomen.

By contrast, the coalition government increased the number of apprentices in training by more than 2½ times, from over 154,000 in March 1996 to over 414,000 in March 2007. This was backed by an increase in investment in vocational and technical education from $1.1 billion to $2.9 billion—an 87 per cent increase in funding in real terms. That is an enormous increase in real funding. There are now more than 160,000 people aged 25 and older undertaking apprenticeships. There are now more mature age apprentices than the total number of apprentices when Labor left office.

I make this point: while it is okay for Ms Gillard and the Labor government to talk about the fact that there is a skills shortage in this country, when Labor were last in office they did not do enough, and it took the coalition government 11½ years to pick that up. It is all very well to talk about universities—and that is great; it is important that Australians be encouraged—but we now know there was not enough emphasis on technical and further education, and that is a glaring hole in the legacy of the Hawke and Keating years.

Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McLucas interjecting—

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do welcome Ms Gillard and Labor as recent converts to the cause of training and apprenticeships. I only wish that the key aspect of their training policy was not such a mess, as we now know it is from the estimates hearings. I heard Senator McLucas’s injection—let me just have a look at what Labor is proposing for technical and further education. The headline policy is federal Labor’s $2.5 billion Trades Training Centres in Schools Plan. This is what the ALP says on the website:

Federal Labor’s Trades Training Centres in Schools Plan would provide between $500,000 and $1.5 million to secondary schools to build or upgrade trade workshops, Information, Communications and Technology labs and other facilities such as:

Metal or woodwork workshops;

Commercial kitchens;

Hairdressing facilities;

Automotive workshop;

Plumbing workshop;

Graphic Design laboratories;

Computer Laboratories; and

The technical facilities.

The program will also fund the purchase or replacement of a range of equipment such as:

Safety equipment;

Soldering and Welding equipment;

Ovens;

Wood and Metal turning lathes;

Grinders; and

Drills.

As the policy says, this is to happen at every one of 2,650 secondary schools for the one million students in years 9 to 12. That is what this policy relates to.

At what sort of standard? According to www.kevin07.com.au, Labor’s policy will mean that the infrastructure and equipment being used in schools is of the same standard as that being used by industry. Kids who want to pursue a trade at school are being told that on average less than $1 million will go to each school and that they will have an industry standard of training in all these areas in each school—metal or woodwork workshops, commercial kitchens, hairdressing facilities, automotive workshops, plumbing workshops and so on. There is no way that industry standard training facilities can be made available in 2,650 schools in this country. That is an impossibility—not for a million dollars.

You might say, as I would say: why don’t we consolidate some of this training and perhaps have specialist high schools, for example, in plumbing? You could consolidate the training in certain areas. You could do that.

Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is that a policy?

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You might consolidate automotive workshops in one particular high school and have a cluster of four high schools. That is possible. Senator McLucas is right. But the problem then becomes: suppose I am at a school and I want to study, let us say, automotive workshops, but it is not offered at my school and I have to go to a different school. That is fine. You might say that kids in years 9, 10, 11 and 12 might have to change schools. But why not then have a specialist place where students can go, where the teachers are qualified, and where all the technical and further education is under one roof? You would think that was a good policy, wouldn’t you? Yes, and they are called Australian technical colleges, and that was the coalition’s policy, and that was done.

What the Labor government has done is very clever. The estimates process that we have just gone through was a fiasco. The government and the poor public servants having to defend the government had no idea how each school, for under $1 million, is going to be able to put forward this marvellous technical and further education program. Obviously a lot of work has to be done, and certainly the opposition will be looking very closely at what happens.

There is a teacher shortage in this country. There is a shortage of people qualified to teach woodwork, metalwork, automotive mechanics and plumbing, and so forth. Yet we are told that somehow, magically, all of these people are going to turn up—I do not know from where. The opposition does support this bill and the centrepiece of Labor’s technical and further education program will be watched very closely by the opposition. Let us just see if it works. I am very sceptical whether this new program will work, whether there is enough money and enough teachers to make it work. Certainly the opposition will be watching.

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

As has been stated, the Rudd government is committed to increasing skills in this country. Throughout the election campaign and long before that, the Labor Party made skills and training one of its main priority areas. We know that Australia is in the midst of a skills shortage. Skills and training have been a major topic of debate in this place and in the media and community for many years. In fact, when I looked at the news service this morning I found an article there by Colin Brinsden, economics correspondent for AAP Canberra. The article is illuminating. It says:

CONTRARY to what the former coalition government led people to believe, WorkChoices and employment laws are the second largest hindrance to expansion, a major survey shows.

The survey by global business consultant Grant Thornton found that shortages of skilled workers remained the biggest problem affecting the expansion of Australian businesses.

The survey of 250 medium-sized to large Australian companies showed that regulation and red-tape scored 32 per cent as a hindrance in expanding their business, up from 27 per cent in a similar 2007 survey.

This included 27 per cent saying employment laws have had the biggest regulatory impact on their ability to expand their business, followed by environmental regulation at 17 per cent and health and safety laws at 10 per cent.

The former Howard government promoted its controversial Work Choices laws as providing greater flexibility for business.

“Governments need to work more closely with business, and those organisations which understand the privately-owned business sector, to identify their future needs and aim to address the regulatory issues ahead of the need, rather than constantly playing ‘catch-up’,” Tony Markwell, national head of private business services at Grant Thornton said.

Still, regulation fell well behind the impact of skilled shortages as a constraint to growing a business at 58 per cent, which is almost identical to the 59 per cent recorded last year.

The report is part of a wider global study of 7,400 business owners across 34 countries which found an average of 37 per cent of businesses being impacted by skilled worker shortages, up from 34 per cent last year.

Businesses in Thailand were most affected by skills shortages, at 68 per cent, while the Philippines equalled Australia as the country second most constrained by skills shortages at 58 per cent.

This is the legacy that those on the other side have left this country and this economy. This is why the Reserve Bank is warning that this matter needs to be dealt with urgently. How did the opposition treat the issue of skills shortages when it was in power? When those on the other side sat on this side of the chamber, what did they do? We had an inquiry by the Senate Standing Committee on Education, Employment and Workplace Relations back in 2002. There was a virtually unanimous report with 52 recommendations on how to address the issue of identifying skills shortages—which is what this bill is about setting up—how to measure where the needs would be into the future and there were a series of proposals on how to address the training needs in those areas in order to deliver the skilled workers. What did the former government do? It virtually ignored the report. The minister could not even be bothered to respond to the recommendations. I think it took him something like nine months to actually respond to the recommendations. The government was not interested.

If you look at the history of how the Liberal-National Party government dealt with the issue of skills shortages, it was always about short-term fixes that looked good in the public eye. They were political fixes. They were never fixes that were meant to be enduring and to provide long-term solutions, which is what this bill is about setting up. It will create a body that will start to address from the ground up where the skills shortages are in our economy. It will address how those skills shortages can best be dealt with by meeting them in the longer term and ensuring that we never get caught in a set of circumstances like this again. We found in that inquiry back in 2002 that there are many examples of good systems that have been established around this country to provide skilled workers. One of them in is in Brisbane, in Queensland—

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hear, hear.

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

where Senator Mason comes from—

Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Me too!

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

and Senator McLucas. In fact, it was in the seat of the minister at the time, Mr Hardgrave. Mr Hardgrave never even visited the place and here is a facility that is training 3,000 building apprentices every year. Mr Hardgrave was so busy he could not walk down the street to see where the practical examples were. What is happening there? It is a training facility which is funded by the Queensland government, by Queensland TAFE and by the building industry themselves. It is training plumbers, riggers and even boat builders for the Gold Coast. It is training carpenters, tilers and bricklayers—it is doing the lot.

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Why don’t you build more, George?

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

It is built by the industry.

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You didn’t.

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

What did you do? Your response, Senator Mason, when you were in government—

Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! You will respond to Senator Mason through the chair, Senator Campbell.

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

Through the chair, Senator Mason well knows what his mob did when  they were in government. How did they set about to address the issue? They established 25 technical colleges. I think to this point there have been something like 10 apprentices who have gone through them.

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

That many?

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

That was the last figure I saw, it could be less, I do not know Senator Sterle. That was their response when in fact there were examples there. In combination with ignoring practical examples of good training facilities in place, what did you also do as a government? You cut TAFE funding. You cut $240 million out of the TAFE budget. You reduced the capacity of the states to actually deliver the trade training programs that were capable of meeting the skills shortages. That was your response as a government—to cut the education funding. A lot of it had nothing to do with the fact that there were not the resources to provide to the states. It had nothing to do with whether TAFE had the capacity to actually deliver the training—everyone knew it had. A lot of it was predicated on forcing the TAFEs in the states to adopt your work practices legislation, your Work Choices, to force them to put the trainers onto AWAs.

I have to say, from the point of view of people on this side of the chamber, that the best piece of legislation you ever introduced, Senator Mason, was Work Choices because that is why you are sitting over there. You were wedded to an ideological position and not a practical position in dealing with the realities of industrial relations.

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You copied 98 per cent of our ideology, George.

The Acting Deputy President:

Order, senators! I am asking you to come to order. Senator Campbell will direct his remarks through the chair and other senators will listen to the speaker in relative silence.

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

I am trying very hard to direct my remarks through the chair, Mr Acting Deputy President, but the constant interjections from the other side are too good to ignore. The reality is we have a crisis and that crisis is well identified. We know why the crisis is there. It is because of the lack of attention the former government gave to building a training environment that would provide long-term solutions to the training needs of this country. It is not as if it crept up on us. It has been known about for quite some time. They were belated converts to the issue and, because it had become acute, they tried to address it with quick fixes.

My understanding of the Skills Australia Bill 2008 is that it is about establishing Skills Australia, a body that will put in place the building blocks and the infrastructure to address the skills needs of the nation in the longer term. It will also ensure that we are forward looking in terms of the policies and the framework we put in place to provide the skills that will be required to meet the needs of the Australian economy into the future, and not be confronted again with a set of circumstances where we cannot provide those skills out of our own environment. In fact, many thousands of young Australians have been running around on the dole begging for the opportunity to get a trade and get into the workforce to set up a long-term career for themselves so that they can provide security for their future family lives. None of that has been available.

Some innovative training mechanisms were put in place; for example, I know of the Hunter Valley Training Company, which provides group training in the Hunter Valley. It is based at the old railway workshops in Midland. They had a scheme going with the local high schools under which they would bring in year 9 and year 10 students who were in danger of dropping out of school to teach them basic skills like how to use a hammer. It might seem that there is no technique to hitting a nail into a piece of wood, but let me tell you that when you have hit your thumb a few times you find out that there are some good techniques for hammering a nail into a bit of wood. I learned very early on in my apprenticeship that those techniques were very useful.

They also taught them other basic skills such as how to use an oxyacetylene cutter and how to use a welder. Why did they do it? It was not because they were going to train these kids for five years. They did it to convince the kids that they should go back and complete year 10 because they needed mathematics at that level to provide the grounding for getting into a trade. Many of the young kids who were picked up in that environment are now serving apprenticeships around the Hunter Valley.

Those are the sorts of basic things that are being done all around the country by training companies and industry groups. Some of the schemes are being run by industry. In Cockburn Sound, for example, the aluminium shipbuilders there are running a school based apprenticeship system in conjunction with the local secondary schools—a FETS scheme—for bringing apprentices into the aluminium shipbuilding industry to help meet the skills needs of the industry in that state. Alcoa runs a similar scheme which again is with the local secondary colleges in the area in which they are located—I think it is in Rockingham or in that area, but Senator Sterle can correct me if I am wrong.

So there were real examples in place all around the country showing what needed to be done to provide a skills base. Most of it was simply ignored for quick fixes. People were more ready to deskill, to semiskill and to break down the skills, particularly in the building industry in Western Australia, in order to meet the shortages in the short term rather than looking at how to build skills that would last into the longer term and would provide workers with a skills base that gave them flexibility in the labour market. That is one of the ways in which you can address skills shortages.

Then we had the debacle of the 457 visas. That finished up as a mess and a fiasco in terms of its use in dealing with skills shortages. In reality, it was used by many employers around this country to exploit foreign workers. That is essentially what the program has done, in the main, since its inception.

I believe that the Rudd government is committed to addressing the issue of skills shortages over the longer term. This bill is the first step in building an infrastructure that will meet training needs, not just in the immediate sense but it will enable us to identify what new skills will be required by our economy in the longer term. I believe that that is the correct way to approach the issue of skills development in this country or in any other country. I look forward to watching with interest how the Skills Australia proposal evolves and the types of infrastructure that will grow out of this process. I also look forward to seeing many thousands of young Australians, both male and female, coming out of those centres with a diverse range of skills making them capable of operating effectively and flexibly in the labour market.

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

It is always very, very hard to follow Senator George Campbell, in whom we find a man who has committed many years of his life to the improvement of skills and training around tradesmen. I commend you, Senator Campbell.

I rise to speak in support of the Skills Australia Bill 2008. This bill will put in place a system which will support the needs of Australia and Australians in developing and maintaining an effective skills training system and by providing a response to the national skills shortage. This bill will ensure not only that adequate systems and support are provided to the people in the industry but also that there is appropriate investment in skills and training in Australia. We have seen over past years the neglect that vocational education received under the former Howard government; a government so out of touch that its eleventh hour response to the skills shortage which they created was a half-baked idea to fund Australian Technical Colleges, referred to as ATCs.

The ATCs were nothing other than the poor cousin of the already established and proven TAFE system, which was a system that had been pillaged during the Howard years by none other than the now dynamic leadership duo of the federal opposition—the member for Bradfield, Dr Brendan Nelson, and the member for Curtin, Ms Julie Bishop—who I may remind senators opposite were former ministers for education, science and training in the previous government. Obviously the rot had set in a long, long time ago.

If the last-minute announcements to fund Australian Technical Colleges had been invested in the TAFE system, they would by now have significantly addressed the skills shortage. Even in the final moments of the Howard era the ATCs were neither fully operational nor funded appropriately. The ATCs in 2006-07 did not create one additional training place or apprenticeship. The ATC bills introduced by the former government did not increase the overall percentage of federal money spent on vocational education and training. The Howard government botched its one and only policy response to the skills problem.

Of the 21 ATCs, only three were to be government run; the others were to be gifts to industry by the Howard government in an attempt to keep the companies silent on the neglect they oversaw in skills training and development. The Australian government was funding the establishment but not the operation of these ATCs. We saw the complete duplication of the states’ TAFE system and they were then handed to private corporations.

The Rudd Labor government, in 2007 as part of our plan to address the skills shortage, committed to delivering trades training centres to each of Australia’s 2,650 secondary schools. We have committed funding for this into the years ahead. It will be delivered because we are a government committed to honouring our undertakings to Australian people—unlike those who preceded us, who categorised their promises into those which were core and those which were non-core. We believe in the promises we give and we will deliver on them.

These trades training centres, in partnership with the states, will have a major impact in reducing skills shortages across Australia by building stronger partnerships between local industry and local education providers. A core aim must be to make sure that these training centres are relevant to the local context so that students have the sorts of skills and training that local employers are looking for. This is one way to ensure the long-term viability and success of trades training centres and is part of the Rudd Labor government’s plan for skills and training in Australia and ensures we invest in our future.

Public investment in post-secondary education under the Howard government fell by eight per cent between 1996 and 2008. In the same period, the average public investment in post-secondary education for the rest of the developed world had risen by 38 per cent. Why were we in Australia spending less and less? Why was this issue not given priority in the Howard cabinet room? I do not know. Maybe honourable senators opposite will be able to enlighten us because they were in the party room, not me.

Skills Australia through this bill will be allocated $1 billion, of which $14.6 million will be used to implement the Rudd Labor government’s 450,000 additional training places over the next four years. It is worth noting that 20,000 of these places will be made available from April 2008 as part of our commitment to immediately addressing the skills shortage. Skills Australia will incorporate representatives from industry, unions and government at all levels, state and federal. It will ensure a targeted and effective response to the skills shortage and see that we have a plan for the future of skills and trade training in this country. This new body will formulate skills policy and help create some of the extra training places announced during the election. Skills Australia will advise on current and future demand for skills and training.

During 2007, this government took a plan to the Australian people to deal with the skills shortage. As I said earlier, Labor committed to 450,000 vocational education and training places over the next four-year period, which was a great deal more than Australia was getting from the Howard government. Of these places, no fewer than 175,000 will be provided specifically for Australians entering and re-entering the workforce from unemployment. As mentioned earlier, this government has already acted swiftly to address the skills shortage. Twenty thousand of those training places will be rolled out between 1 April and 30 June this year. Skills Australia will be fighting the inflation challenge by ensuring that we have additional training places available to get people skilled up in the areas of the economy where they are needed the most.

The Rudd Labor government’s Skilling Australia for the Future policy will develop and consolidate the skills capacity of the Australian workforce and ensure that demand for skills and training is matched. The Rudd Labor government’s plans will close the skills gap in the Australian economy in three key ways: firstly, by funding an additional 450,000 training places over the next four years; secondly, by ensuring that most of the 450,000 places lead to a higher level qualification; and, thirdly, by placing industry demand at the heart of the skills training system.

Debate interrupted.