Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to this debate on behalf of the opposition. Labor won't oppose the Trade Support Loans Amendment (Improving Administration) Bill 2019. This bill will provide legislative footing for offsetting as a way of recovering trade support loan, or TSL, overpayment debts and increases the time period that a TSL recipient has to inform the department of changes to circumstances.

However, more broadly, this is just another tweak to a sector that requires a genuine reform package. On its watch, this government has trashed our vocational system. It has slashed funding to TAFE and training, let apprentice numbers fall and presided over a national shortage of tradies, apprentices and trainees. Those opposite simply refuse to deliver a genuine reform package that overhauls the vocational training sector. More than six years of Liberal government has left Australia facing a crisis in skills and vocational training. If the Liberals and Nationals don't do something serious to look at the skills crisis they've created, we could be looking at the extinction of the Australian tradie.

Under this third-term Liberal-National government there are 150,000 fewer apprentices and trainees and a shortage of workers in critical services, including plumbing, carpentry, hairdressing and motor mechanics. The number of Australians doing an apprenticeship or traineeship is lower today than it was a decade ago. There are more people dropping out of apprenticeships and traineeships than finishing them. There is a nearly 10 per cent increase in the number of occupations facing skills shortages, and, in the face of that, the Liberals and Nationals have slashed $3 billion from TAFE and training. The Liberal-National government doesn't care enough or have the capacity to do the hard work that needs to be done to build a better post-school system. Fiddling at the edges of the current system will not address the profound problems that undermine vocational education and training and consequently the productive performance and international competitiveness of our economy. Unlike Labor, the government does not understand the critical role of TAFE as the public provider, the value in skills and apprenticeships, or the value of the hardworking and passionate public TAFE teachers.

The effect of overzealous application of competition policy and privatisation in the VET sector, coupled with chronic underfunding, has had devastating effects on the sector. Too often we have seen dodgy providers overload with students for a quick profit then go belly up leaving those students out of pocket and without the qualifications they need.

Why has it taken this government so long to act? Unlike those who sit opposite us, we value the role of an appropriately funded VET sector for the training, skills and apprenticeships they provide to so many Australians and its vital role in driving the economy and enhancing industry. So, while we won't oppose this bill, we do call on the government to stop ignoring the skills and vocational training crisis that we're experiencing in Australia and to deliver a genuine reform package that overhauls this important sector.