Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education and Training, Senator Birmingham. Will the minister update the Senate on the progress of the government's significant reform of the vocational education and training system?

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator McKenzie for her question and for her strong and ongoing interest in education and training matters, particularly in relation to vocational education and training. The government does have a comprehensive agenda for reforming vocational education and training. It is incredibly important to this government for two prime reasons.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'Mr Agile', is it?

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Firstly, around three million Australians participate in vocational education and training annually—around double the number in our university sector. It is crucial to ensure that those students get the highest quality of training available. Secondly, because our vocational education and training sector provides the type of skills mix necessary for an innovative and agile economy, I say to those opposite that our vocational education and training sector is a critical complement to our university sector and to our overall skills and training mix. That is why, since coming to government, we have made sure that the investment is available—a record sum of around $6 billion in different funding streams that flow from the Commonwealth to vocational education and training this year. It is why we have made sure that we have strengthened and enhanced the link between employers and the operation of the vocational education and training system. It is incredibly important that training is structured in a way to give employers the types of employees with skills that are relevant to the needs of their workplace, and to make sure that, of course, the VET system does what it is designed to do—that is, to train people for real jobs that really exist.

We have enhanced the opportunity and support, especially for apprentices, in providing the trade support loans, which are now supporting more than 16,000 apprentices with additional assistance to help them complete their apprenticeship. In doing so, we have enhanced support overall for apprenticeship arrangements to make sure there is support for completion of apprenticeships and to drive up the unacceptably low completion rates that have historically existed.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Will the minister advise the Senate of the action the government has taken to improve the quality of training to ensure vulnerable students and taxpayers are protected?

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Of great concern to the government have been some of the quality problems in the vocational education and training sector. The reality is that we found a situation, especially as it applied to the operation of the VET FEE-HELP scheme, where the previous government had put in place a poorly structured scheme that really ensured taxpayer money was being wasted and students were accumulating unnecessary debt.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Why did it take you two years to do something about? Why did it take you so long?

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Carr!

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was a system which ensured that the handful of dodgy providers were like bees to a honeypot. Senator Carr, Mr President, may well want to throw questions across the table. The real question is: why was Labor so inept in establishing this scheme?

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Why don't you do something to fix it?

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Why did Labor establish a scheme that, frankly, looks every bit as bad as the pink batts scheme in the way money is being wasted?

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Why don’t you fix it then?

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Why is Labor being so neglectful in terms of coming up with any ideas as to how to address this? This, of course, has been a serious problem which this government has taken seriously and enacted changes to fix. (Time expired)

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. Can the minister advise the Senate why these new changes have been required?

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The types of changes we have applied have been necessary because we found an unholy mess left by those opposite when they structured the VET FEE-HELP program. We found that had they put in place a program that was too easy for providers to sign people up without actually looking—

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What did you do for two years, Simon? You were minister for two years.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Wong wants to say, 'What did you do?' Well, Senator Wong, you do not seem to want to take any responsibility that, as the finance minister of the previous government, you put in place an arrangement that has seen billions of dollars going out the door without getting good completion rates and without getting real training. That is why we have been implementing these reforms, Mr President. That is exactly the reason.

Honourable senators interjecting—

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, Minister. There is a point of order. Pause the clock. Senator Heffernan, on a point of order.

Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on a point of order, Mr President. With all of this lunatic yelling, everyone has been scared out of the chamber. The gallery has been cleaned out.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no point of order, Senator Heffernan.

Honourable senators interjecting—

Order! Senators on both sides! Minister.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This government took quick action, because new standards applied from 1 January this year. Further conditions were applied from 1 April this year to ensure inducements were banned. Further actions are being put in place from July this year and again from January next year, all of which have been developed to fix up a mess created by those opposite, to ensure we deal with that legacy problem and to make sure training in future is for students who want genuine training outcomes. (Time expired)