Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor does not oppose the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Amendment (Governance and Other Matters) Bill 2020. The bill amends the governance structures of the Australian Skills Quality Authority, the national VET sector regulator, and enhances information-sharing arrangements between ASQA and the National Centre for Vocational Education Research. Key amendments in this legislation before the chamber today revise ASQA's governance structure, replacing the existing chief commissioner/chief executive officer and two commissioners with a single independent statutory office holder, in this case a CEO. It establishes the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Advisory Council. The advisory council is intended to provide ASQA with access to expert advice regarding the functions of the regulator.

On this side of the chamber, in Labor, we know the value of TAFE and of union representation. Their views need to be heard and considered when it comes to our vocational education and training sector. That's why today in the Senate we'll seek to move amendments to ensure the public provider has seats at the table. We support a fair and considered approach to these reforms and we support changes that improve ASQA's capacity to ensure responsiveness to students, communities and employers, but we'll reject changes that attempt to weaken ASQA's regulatory framework. We in this chamber need to ensure that the reforms to ASQA audit processes don't allow any drop in quality. In the past, we have seen this government be slow to act on quality issues. In Labor's view, this has done serious damage to the sector. There is considerable need for reform. But, more broadly, in the case of reform, the bill before us today is just another tweak from a third-term government that has refused to deliver genuine reform that overhauls our vocational training sector. Today the bill before us does not come close to fixing the mess that the Liberal government has made of Australia's TAFE and training system.

In our nation we have, very clearly, a skills shortage which existed before COVID-19 hit. The coronavirus outbreak has highlighted that more than seven years of Liberal government has left Australia facing a crisis in skills and in vocational training. The most recent figures show a 73 per cent drop in the number of apprenticeships advertised. Indeed, I have spoken to small businesses that say they've been struggling to keep their apprentices on. This government did offer a subsidy for apprentices. That's a step in the right direction, but this is a critical problem for our nation. Much more needs to be done in offering support to newly starting apprentices and trainees. If we as a nation fail on that score, we will have a much deeper and greater skills shortage in the years to come.

We had a skills shortage before COVID-19 hit. The government spent seven years neglecting our TAFE and training systems. It has spent seven years ignoring the vital role that TAFE plays in the growth of our young people and the vital role it plays in the growth of our economy. We have had seven years of cutting funding from the sector while there has also been underspending in the meagre amount that the government promised to the vocational education and training sector. So rebuilding our skills and training sector will be crucial and critical to getting our economy going again.

We absolutely need to be properly funding our TAFE and apprenticeship programs. We've seen $3 billion worth of cuts in recent years to TAFE and to training. This government must restore the funding that they've cut. The government must invest in training the next generation of tradespeople in their areas, and we need them to take some responsibility in doing that.

We've seen a litany of skills and vocational training failures under this government. More than seven years of Liberal government has left Australia facing a crisis in skills and vocational training. As we learned last year from the federal education department's own data, the Liberals have failed to spend $919 million of their own TAFE and training budget over the last five years. All this money is sitting in the government's bank account—all in addition to the more than $3 billion already ripped out of our system.

We have TAFE campuses falling apart in our country. We've got state governments closing campuses and ending courses. All the while, money remains unspent. Why? Because the government says that there's been less demand than forecast. The Liberal Party has said this every year since it came to office. I'm sorry to say that this simply does not stack up when underemployment is at near record levels at the same time as employers in our country are crying out for skilled workers. What's the result of this underspend? There are 140,000 fewer apprentices and trainees and there's a shortage of workers in critical services, including plumbing, carpentry, hairdressing and motor mechanics.

In our country, the number of Australians doing an apprenticeship or traineeship is lower today than it was a decade ago. The Independent National Centre for Vocational Education Research recently found that, over the past year, 20 per cent fewer people were signing up to trade apprenticeships and traineeships. This was even more extreme in a number of very essential trades. The number of Australians starting an apprenticeship or traineeship in construction—including carpentry, bricklaying and plumbing—has dropped by an alarming 40 per cent. In some areas, there are more people dropping out of vocational courses than there are finishing them. This doesn't happen by accident.

There has been a $1 billion underspend from this Liberal government. That funding included incentives for business to take on apprentices and support to help people finish their apprenticeships, and there was a fund designed to train Australians in areas of need. The government's proposals to support education and training in our country are simply not working. This brings us to a skills crisis in an era of rising youth unemployment. We have, simultaneously, a crisis of youth unemployment and a crisis of skills shortages. One of these is bad enough, but to be faced with both at the same time is hard to imagine, particularly at this time. But here we are confronted with both.

There's been nearly a 10 per cent increase in the number of occupations facing skills shortages, while the Australian Industry Group says that 75 per cent of businesses surveyed are struggling to find the qualified workers they need. There are almost two million Australians who are unemployed or underemployed. We see businesses struggling to fill the skilled positions they have on offer. At the same time, we have young people desperate for work who can't fill those positions because they haven't been given the chance to gain the skills that those roles require.

Why isn't the Morrison government training these people for jobs in industries where there's a shortage of workers. Why? Because this Liberal government has cut funding to TAFEs and training. And, even though this is the case, and it's plainly obvious that it is, the government still refuses to properly fund the sector. It refuses to give it the proper reform that it so desperately needs. Young people in our country have been very clear about what they need. They need a skills and training sector that is properly funded. They need that sector to be properly resourced. They need it to have educators who are properly trained and able to skill-up young people as a pathway to meaningful employment. This nation needs that now more than ever. This government has not delivered on a single one of those requests.

We have a Liberal government that has no plan to fix our nation's skills crisis. It doesn't care enough or have the capacity to do the hard work that needs to be done to build a better post-school education system. Our Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, has no plan to fix the skills crisis he has created. He has no plan to create more jobs for those who are unemployed. He has no plan to lift wages for those who are employed. As always, this Prime Minister would rather hide from problems than do the hard work that is needed to fix and resolve them. We have from our Prime Minister spin and deflection, bringing in marketing teams and celebrity ambassadors to distract from the real issues that confront our nation on skills.

We have in JobMaker another marketing slogan with no substance. JobTrainer goes nowhere near replacing the funding the government has stripped out and we still don't know what it will do. A government that is fiddling at the edges of our 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, this government does not understand the critical role of TAFE as a public provider, the value in skills and apprenticeships or the real value of the hardworking and passionate public providers in TAFE, our TAFE teachers. If we continue down this path we, as a nation, will be severely jeopardising our future, including our future economic growth. We will also undermine the opportunity of individual Australians to meet their full potential and, most importantly, compromise our ability as a nation to compete with the rest of the world, using the skills, knowledge, discovery and invention of our people.

We know that nine out of 10 jobs created in the future will need a post-secondary school education, at either TAFE or university. So we need to increase participation in both our universities and our vocational education sector. We need to make sure our young people are prepared for the world of work—a world of work that we have all seen recently changing so very quickly. If we do not value the role of an appropriately funded VET sector for the training, skills and apprenticeships it provides so many Australians, its vital role in driving the economy and enhancing industries will be overlooked. This is a third-term government that simply refuses to deliver genuine reform that overhauls the higher education sector and that properly funds both vocational training providers and our nation's universities to deliver the services that their students need.

Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make a contribution to the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Amendment (Governance and Other Matters) Bill 2020. The bill makes substantial changes to the Australian Skills Quality Authority's governance structure, establishes the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Advisory Council and revises arrangements for data sharing and access pertaining to the National Centre for Vocational Education Research. The Greens will not oppose this bill, but we are not without concern.

Any regulator should be empowered and resourced to do its job without interference from the government. As I've said before in this chamber, ASQA's ability to operate effectively relies on having the resources that it needs and on having strong independence. The bill before us, like past changes to vocational education and training regulation, is concerning in that it expands the scope of directions that the minister can give ASQA. We must not open the door to the kind of ministerial interference we saw in Minister Birmingham's Australian Research Council meddling with recommendations or the Prime Minister and former Minister McKenzie's rorting of sports grants. This bill also continues the government's disquieting pattern of avoiding appropriate scrutiny of executive decisions in this chamber by adding to the number of non-disallowable legislative instruments under the act.

This is from a government that is allergic to scrutiny, with a history of mismanagement of vocational education and training and utter disrespect for the public training system it's worked systematically to undermine. Any such move is alarming. We'll be watching closely how these changes play out over the next few months as the government pursues its purported skills reform.

The establishment of an advisory council in this bill is welcome, although it is unsurprising from the Liberals that the sensible thing hasn't been done upfront by making sure the voices of our public training providers and our trade unions are included in the council, so we will join our Labor colleagues in supporting an amendment to that end. I urge my crossbench colleagues to support us in this.

It was extraordinary, I must say, to watch a Liberal prime minister attack the very vocational education and training system that they created. They created the system by destroying TAFEs and public training in Australia with the help of the Prime Minister's state Liberal colleagues. And yet the Prime Minister offered no new funding at the Press Club earlier this year. There were more than 4,000 words and not one single mention of TAFE, the bedrock of our training system.

We need free TAFE and uni for all and new investment to rebuild publicly delivered training in our TAFEs. Those would be the crucial first steps of any skills overhaul. Instead, all we got from the Prime Minister was hot air, a push to renegotiate funding without offering a single extra cent to the system he is underfunding and all the language of competition and marketisation that will rightly send a shiver down the spine of Australians, who know public education and training are the closest thing we have to a ticket to a more fair, equal and just society.

We saw that language again from the Productivity Commission's interim report, which urges more of the same marketisation that has led the VET system into disarray and scandal, while suggesting that little priority to TAFEs be given and that state funding should be unwound. What's more, the total of government loans repaid to students who have been ripped off by shonky for-profit VET providers has now surged past $1.2 billion, but the government is once again entertaining extending loan programs to private providers—the same kind of extension that got us in this mess in the first place.

The importance of TAFE and the risk we run in neglecting it cannot be overstated. A report from The Australia Institute released on National TAFE Day this year tells us the system creates $90 billion in economic benefits annually and well-funded TAFE is essential for delivering the workforce needed for post-COVID reconstruction. Altogether, the benefits that come from TAFE are 16 times more than the investment. How amazing is an investment that gives you 16 times more than you put in? That's our TAFEs and that's why we must support them. These are enormous benefits for Australia, yet, as the author of the report, Alison Pennington, puts it, that house is now crumbling from neglect and policy vandalism.

The report also finds that the TAFE system increases employability and lowers unemployment. TAFE graduates enter the labour force with better employment prospects and skills. The increased labour force participation and employability of TAFE graduates correspond to additional employment of 486,000. The report finds that the TAFE system promotes wider social benefits critical to addressing inequality. TAFE helps bridge access to further education and job pathways in regional areas and for special and at-risk youth groups. TAFE students are more likely to come from low-income households and identify as Aboriginal, compared with students of private vocational education and training providers.

The lesson we should have learned once and for all in the debacle of the Labor-Liberal VET loans program is that, as with all stages of education, in vocational education and training there is no place for private profit. For the future of young people seeking training—indeed for the future of our country—we need to understand that their skills should not be the domain of profiteers seeking to juice what they can from the taxpayer while meeting their minimum obligation to students and then banking the difference for their profits. Time and again we've seen the exploitation resulting from that business model. Nearly 40 per cent of young people don't have a job or enough hours of work. Youth wage growth is the flattest it has ever been. Those figures are only going to worsen, and enrolments in education and training are going to skyrocket as the economy continues to deteriorate. If we are to help them and if we are to build a more socially and economically just society after the pandemic, we need massive investment in a Green New Deal, including making TAFE and uni free and providing significant new government investment to make sure that we don't leave whole generations behind.

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Amendment (Governance and Other Matters) Bill 2020. Australia's skills and education system has always been a very strong passion of mine. I've spent my working life getting people into work, and having the right skills and training packages, which respond to industry needs, is a critical enabler of that. I've seen the life-changing impact that this government's focus on skills and training continues to have, and I'm proud to stand here on this side of the chamber to speak on this bill, which is another demonstration of how important this issue is to our economic agenda.

Skills, education and training have never been more important to our nation than right now in the recovery phase of this challenge. Our national economy and the businesses within it will continue to see significant upheaval. I don't believe there has been another point in our recent history when the labour market in Australia has experienced such a high level of fluidity. The ability of our skills and training system to adapt to this environment so as to respond to the rapidly changing needs of industry will be critically important as we recover, and this bill goes some way to addressing that. It is a critical piece of our economic response to this coronavirus challenge. We know that skills and training will be crucial to Australia's economic recovery. That is why VET reform is a key pillar of the Morrison government's JobMaker plan. We know we need to move quickly to position the VET sector to support Australia's economic recovery. The jobs created as we come out of this crisis will not be the same as the jobs that were lost, and it's critical that Australians can access high-quality and relevant training to reskill and upskill.

The National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Amendment (Government and Other Matters) Bill amends the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Act 2011 to reform the governance structure of the Australian Skills Quality Authority. The main function of the bill will be to replace the current governance structure of a chief commissioner and deputy commissioners with a CEO and advisory council. This will modernise the regulator so that it can take on a greater educative role and have a more effective regulatory approach. This bill also enables ASQA to engage external help as required and ramp up information-sharing, among other reforms. This means the organisation will be more adaptive and responsive to the needs of industry and the demands of the broader Australian economy.

As part of our recovery plan, the government have announced we will partner with state and territories to establish a $1 billion JobTrainer fund. This fund will rapidly provide around 340,700 additional training places that are free or low-fee in areas of identified skills need for jobseekers and school leavers. We must always ensure that any funding is directed to training for jobs that exist or for jobs that are in need, and that's what this package is designed to do. We're not interested in just funding training for training's sake. We're not going to fund underwater origami courses—courses that won't actually lead someone to a job; we're going to fund training that matches the needs of industry and matches the needs of employers. Senator Faruqi said the Greens have a great opposition to funding private training providers. Well, I've just been through the Pilbara, and I've met businesses that are providing their own training. And guess what? Those businesses are the best people to train people for their jobs, and we should be doing everything we can to support that, not just have the government provide the training. When the industry know what they want and industry know what they need—that is something that I'm always going to support because we know that it yields even better results.

To access the JobTrainer funding, states and territories need to sign the Heads of Agreement for Skills Reform, which sets out immediate reforms to improve the vocational education and training sector and provides the foundation for long-term improvements. I understand that there are discussions going on right now with the Western Australian government and, while I'm not privy to those discussions, I know that my home state in particular is experiencing a lot of churn in critical sectors, some of which power the national economy. I hope that they are able to conclude those negotiations very soon so that we can get on with the task of providing necessary training to meet the needs of the jobs that are ahead of us. The priorities in the heads of agreement are all aimed at ensuring that the VET system is delivering for students and employers.

In addition to this, we've announced the $2.8 billion Supporting Apprentices and Trainees measure, which commenced on 2 April 2020. The most recent figures demonstrate the government has provided over $462 million to support over 50,000 businesses employing more than 87,000 apprentices and trainees. This has been a game changer for the apprentices and the businesses which employ them. For us there was no other option. It is absolutely critical to the success of our nation coming out of this pandemic that those who are completing their apprenticeship are able to continue to do so and that more apprentices should be taken on. I completed an apprenticeship between the 1996 and 1999, and I'm so grateful that my employer stuck with me and gave me the opportunity to complete it, even though there were times where it was difficult for that employer because the business was going through some structural change, and they could have easily let me go. But they stuck with me. Now, as an adult looking back on those years when I was an older teenager and a young adult, I'm so grateful for the support that was provided to me. This government is working with industry, working with employers, to ensure that they are able to keep their apprentices, even during this time, and encouraging more businesses to take on more apprentices, because we know that that is going to be critical for the future.

Eligibility for the subsidy will be expanded to include medium-sized businesses with 199 employees or fewer and who had an apprentice in place on 1 July 2020. The duration of the wage subsidy will also be extended by six months to cover wages paid up to March 2021. The JobKeeper payment will also support many apprentices and trainees to remain connected to their employer as a result of the pandemic.

Substantial regulatory and fee relief has also been provided to the vocational education and training sector. Fees charged by ASQA will be refunded or waived. This is important. These measures put some $100 million back into the cash flow of Australian education and training businesses so that this money can be used to retain employees, reshape education offerings and support domestic and international students. There will also be a six-month exemption from the loan fees associated with VET student loans in a bid to encourage full-fee paying students to continue their studies despite these difficult times.

We are focused on delivering the skills for the future. We have a $585 million skills package designed to strengthen Australia's vocational education and training system. We have a $48.3 million National Skills Commission which provides independent, evidence based advice on the labour market trends and industry driven demand. Industry led skills organisations are also preparing us for jobs of the future, giving us information we need to see what skills are required, what type of qualifications will be most suitable and how our education and training system should adapt for us to take full advantage of the next great industrial opportunities.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. There is so much more that this government is doing to give Australians every possible opportunity to embark and retrain for their career of choice. There is no doubt that the coronavirus challenge has changed the way Australians live, work and study, and the ramification of this change will exist for some time to come. These measures will make sure that we as a nation are well prepared for the future. I'm proud to be a member of this government, which is prepared and which is future-proofing our VET system.

Those opposite often like to forget that we are paying to fix their failed VET FEE-HELP scheme. Since 2016, over 91,000 students have had their VET FEE-HELP loan debts of over $1.5 billion recredited by the Commonwealth. Australians haven't forgotten what Labor did to the VET sector went they were last in government. Apprenticeships fell by 110,000 between July 2012 and June 2013 after they ripped out $1.2 billion in employer incentives—the largest ever annual decline. We are working with states and territories to reform the system and clean up the mess that was left by federal Labor.

The government is investing more in a better system. To commit more funding we need to have confidence in a VET system that will deliver what the economy needs. The coalition government is committed to ensuring that we are equipping Australians with the skills that they need for good, secure and long-term jobs. So I commend this bill to the Senate.

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Amendment (Governance and Other Matters) Bill 2020. No matter how many times I stand in this place and speak about the value of vocational education, I am yet to be assured that those opposite are actually listening, because their policies aren't demonstrating that they truly understand the importance and needs of the sectors. The Liberals have slashed funding to TAFE and training, let apprentice numbers fall and presided over a national shortage of tradies, apprentices and trainees. We are not just talking little cuts; the Liberals have cut TAFE and training by over $3 billion. I'll repeat that: $3 billion. We have in those opposite a third-term government who simply refuse to deliver a genuine reform package that overhauls the vocational training sector. We need to stop the cuts to TAFE. We need to properly value the educational sector, from early education right through school and tertiary education. We need to recognise that education is something that benefits all of us, not just those who are studying. It's something that we need to invest in as a society for the benefit of society. We need to compete in this century with our partners and competitors overseas as the smart country, not via a race to the bottom on wages and conditions.

Particularly in my home state of Tasmania, we have seen that there is a desperate—absolutely desperate!—need for more skilled workers across many sectors of the economy. To grow or even just to continue their operations, businesses need skilled workers. Skills training is especially important for young Tasmanians. I understand the importance of vocational education. While working for the Australian Services Union, I set up the first union job skills program, which obviously included a component of vocational education. I also represented the union on many industry training advisory boards. I know these kinds of training programs can transform the lives of young people. The youth unemployment rate in Tasmania is 15.1 per cent and since March this year 6,400 young people have lost their jobs. Upskilling young Tasmanians is a fantastic way to create jobs and employment opportunities.

Tasmanian Labor will take to the next Tasmanian state election a policy that advocates for free TAFE and VET education, and I welcome that. The government cannot use COVID-19 as an excuse for reduced numbers of apprenticeships and trainees; there were certainly skill shortages long before COVID-19 hit. Much more needs to be done right now to support apprentices and trainees. The Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government spent seven years neglecting our TAFE and training system. In Tasmania, we need to train more Tasmanians because we don't have enough of the skilled workers that we need. Many kinds of workers are still being allowed into Tasmania, despite our border restrictions, with claims that there are no suitably qualified Tasmanians available to fill these positions. While I suspect that there are Tasmanians who could do the work if we looked to find them, it still highlights the desperate need to significantly increase the number of people completing vocational education in Tasmania.

We need real leadership and a real commitment in this sector. However, the bill before us today does not do that. It makes minor, technical changes to the governance arrangements regarding vocational education. It is just another tweak from the third-term government who simply refuse to deliver a genuine reform package that overhauls the vocational training sector. While the bill is welcome—Labor won't oppose it—it is disappointing that the best the government can do is tinker around the edges in a sector which is struggling due to massive funding cuts. This bill does not come close to fixing the mess the Liberal government has made of Australia's TAFE and training system.

The National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Amendment (Governance and Other Matters) Bill 2020 amends the governance structures of The Australian Skills Quality Authority, or ASQA, and enhances information sharing arrangements between ASQA and the National Centre for Vocational Education Research, the NCVER. The legislation builds on the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Amendment Bill 2019 and responds to the Braithwaite and Joyce reviews, which both called on ASQA to adopt a greater educative role alongside its regulatory role. The changes also respond to initial findings from the rapid review of ASQA's governance, culture and processes. Key amendments will revise ASQA's governance structure, replacing the existing chief commissioner or chief executive officer and two commissioners with a single independent statutory office holder, and will establish the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Advisory Council. The advisory council is intended to provide ASQA with access to expert advice regarding the functions of the regulator.

Having previously been a member of many Tasmanian advisory committee boards, I feel that an important feature of an advisory council is that it takes advice from a wide range of people, including those who have experience in, or in representing, the sector. Labor knows the value of TAFE and union representation and believe their views should be heard and considered when it comes to the VET sector. Labor's amendments will ensure that the public provider has seats at the table. I hope the crossbench will support our amendments. The reforms in this bill are needed, and we support a fair and considered approach to ASQA reforms. We will support changes that improve ASQA's capacity to ensure responsiveness to students, communities and employers, but we'll reject changes that attempt to weaken ASQA's regulatory framework. We need to ensure that reforms to ASQA's audit processes don't allow any drop in the quality of training.

In the past we've seen that this government is slow to act on quality issues, and it has done serious damage to the sector. More than seven years of Liberal government have left Australia facing a crisis in skills and vocational training. As we learned last year from the federal education department's own data, the Liberals have failed to spend $919 million of their own TAFE and training budget over the past five years. These funds are just sitting in the government's bank account, when they should be used to improve our TAFE system. This is in addition to the more than $3 billion which has already been ripped out of the system. State governments are closing campuses and ending courses; TAFE campuses are falling apart and in desperate need of repair—all while this funding remains unspent.

The government claims that there has been less demand than forecast every year since the Liberal Party came to office. This comment doesn't stack up when unemployment and underemployment are at near-record levels while, at the same time, employers are crying out for skilled workers. Under the Liberals there are 140,000 fewer apprentices and trainees and a shortage of workers in critical services, including plumbing, carpentry, hairdressing and motor mechanics. Each of us relies on these services in our lives. We cannot simply close our eyes and wish for problems in the training sector to vanish. Proactive government policies are needed to turn things around.

The number of Australians doing an apprenticeship or traineeship is lower today than it was a decade ago. The independent National Centre for Vocational Education Research recently found that, over the past year, 20 per cent fewer people signed up to trade apprenticeships and traineeships. This drop was even more extreme in a number of essential trades. The number of Australians starting an apprenticeship or traineeship in construction, including carpentry, bricklaying and plumbing, dropped by an alarming 40 per cent. In some areas there are more people dropping out of vocational courses than there are people finishing them. That doesn't happen by accident; it's a consequence of this government's neglect. That's just not good enough—we've got to do better.

The Liberal government's underspend of almost $1 billion has affected incentives for businesses to take on apprentices, support to help people finish their apprenticeships, and a fund designed to train Australians in areas of need. We're simultaneously experiencing a crisis of youth unemployment and a crisis of skills shortages. One of these would be bad enough, but here we are confronted with both. To be faced with both at the same time is pretty hard to imagine, especially when there's an easy solution which fixes both: better funding for training in the vocational education sector.

There has been an increase of nearly 10 per cent in the number of occupations facing skills shortages. While the Australian Industry Group says that 75 per cent of businesses surveyed are struggling to find the qualified workers they need, there are almost two million Australians who are unemployed or underemployed. While businesses are struggling to fill the skilled positions they have on offer, we have young people desperate for work who can't fill these positions because they haven't been given the chance to gain the skills that the roles require. Why isn't the government training these people for jobs in industries where there's a shortage of workers? I'll tell you why. It's because the Liberals have cut funding to TAFE and training. I don't know whether it's ideological, whether they're just short-sighted or whether they're maybe a bit snobby and there's a stigma about university and vocational education, but the government refuse to properly fund the sector. They simply refuse to give the sector the proper reform that it so desperately needs.

Young people have been clear with what they need. They need a skills training sector that is properly funded, is properly resourced and has educators who are properly trained and able to skill these kids up as a pathway to meaningful employment. Why is this so hard for the government to understand? This government hasn't delivered on a single element of those requests. The Liberal 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. Scott Morrison has no plan to fix the skills crisis he created. He has no plan to create more jobs or to lift wages for those who are employed. We've seen a continuous attack on pay, conditions and workers' rights from this government. As always, the Prime Minister would rather hide from problems than do the hard work needed to solve them. He would rather spin and deflect, bringing in marketing teams and celebrity ambassadors to distract from the real issue, because we all know this Prime Minister is all about surface over substance.

JobMaker is another marketing slogan with no real substance. JobTrainer goes nowhere near replacing the funding the government has stripped out, and we still don't know what it will do. 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 obviously doesn't understand the critical role of TAFE as the public provider, the values in skills and apprenticeships, or the value of the hardworking and passionate public TAFE teachers. If we continue down this path we will severely jeopardise our future economic growth, undermine the opportunity of individual Australians to meet their full potential, and, very importantly, compromise our ability as a nation to compete with the rest of the world using the skills, knowledge, discovery and invention of our own people.

We know that nine out of 10 jobs created in the future will need a post-secondary school education, either TAFE or university. So we need to increase participation in both universities and our vocational education sector to make sure our young people are prepared for the world of work, which is changing ever so quickly.

This third-term government simply refuses to deliver a genuine reform package that overhauls the higher education sector and that properly funds both vocational training providers and universities to deliver the services that their students need. This government has spent seven years ignoring the vital role TAFE plays in the growth of our young people and the vital role it plays in the growth of our economy. It has spent seven years cutting funding models, underspending the meagre amount it promised the sector. Rebuilding our skills and training sector will be crucial to getting the economy going again, and the government needs to properly fund our TAFE and apprenticeship programs.

We've seen $3 billion of cuts in recent years to TAFE and training. As I said, Labor won't oppose this bill, but the government can and should be doing much, much more to reverse the dreadful effects its cuts have had on the TAFE and vocational education sector. The government must restore that funding that they've cut. The government must invest in training the next generation of tradespeople in our country, because a strong economy relies on a skilled workforce. Young Tasmanians, young Australians, deserve this and the wider Tasmanian and the wider Australian economy needs this, as does the rest of Australia.

Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to rise in the Senate today to speak in favour of the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Amendment (Governance and Other Matters) Bill 2020. Australia's vocational and education training sector, or the VET sector as we like to call it, provides students across the country with skills and hands-on training for skilled jobs that Australia needs. It's important that we continue to ensure we prioritise quality improvements for VET, including ensuring that regulation of the sector is reasonable, transparent and effective through the Australian Skills Quality Authority, or ASQA. With the onset of COVID-19 it's more important now than ever that we ensure our VET system is working for students, working for employers and working for the wider Australian community.

The bill that we are discussing here today amends the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Act 2011 to reform the governance structure of the Australian Skills Quality Authority. The bill will replace the current governance structure of ASQA of a chief commissioner and deputy commissioners with a CEO and an advisory council. This will modernise the regulator so it can take on a greater educative role and have a more effective regulatory approach.

A review announced by the Morrison government in October 2019 and recommendations from two previous independent reviews have informed the changes within the bill that we're discussing today. The amendments support consistent, fit-for-purpose and effective regulation and will enable stakeholder engagement in Australia's VET sector. The government believes that this improved organisational structure will enable better regulatory decisions, better facilitate internal review and ultimately allow ASQA to be a fit-for-purpose regulator of the VET sector. And, as I alluded to earlier, coming out of the coronavirus crisis, this is absolutely what we need to ensure that our VET sector is fit for purpose and strong and to conserve the needs of the Australian economy.

It is somewhat fitting that the Senate considers this legislation during National Skills Week. National Skills Week works to raise the profile of and present prospective students with the benefits from undertaking vocational education and training. The career pathways for students undertaking VET are numerous, from cooking to mechanics to building and construction to engineering. Students are provided with the training and hands-on experience they need for their chosen area of expertise.

We know this virus has wreaked havoc on our economy and has cost so many Australians their job and their income. The Morrison government recognises the stress this unprecedented crisis has placed on Australian workers and their families, and we have acted to ensure that we support Australian through this crisis, through programs, including JobKeeper and jobseeker, and by providing targeted investment to stimulate economic recovery. We know ensuring that Australians are equipped with the right skills and training will be crucial for the next step of our economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The jobs created as we move to a staged focus on recovery will be different to the jobs that were lost when the pandemic took hold. Skilled jobs in growth or expert areas like building and construction, agriculture and renewable energy development will be critical for our economic recovery and will have the potential to place our country in a stronger position than when the crisis commenced.

The government has announced that it will partner with states and territories to establish a $1 billion JobTrainer fund. This fund will rapidly provide around 340,000 additional training places that are free or low fee in areas of identified skills need for jobseekers and job leavers. We are absolutely taking this COVID-19 crisis seriously. We know skills and training is going to be an incredibly important element of our recovery, and that is why we are making this investment.

I also want to talk today about skills and training in my own state of Tasmania, because just last week I had the pleasure of visiting the Huon Valley trade training centre in Huonville. This is one of a number of centres I've visited across Tasmania, including the Sorell trade training centre, and I've been so impressed with the hands-on training and skills that these centres are providing to their students. Trade training centres are specialised training facilities established in regional locations in Tasmania for both school students and adult community members to undertake accredited training in purpose-built facilities. The objectives of the trade training centres are to increase the proportion of students achieving a year 12 or equivalent qualification, to address national skill shortages in traditional trades and emerging industries by improving the relevance and responsiveness of trade training programs in secondary schools, to improve student access to industry-standard trade training facilities, to improve the quality of education offered to secondary students who are undertaking trade related pathways, and to assist young people to make a successful transition from school to work or to further education and training.

One of the most important things I've observed about these trade training centres, particularly in Tasmania, is the alignment they have with the local industry. These trade training centres are not directing students into areas where they think there may not be a job at the end of it. Indeed, they're engaging with local employers, understanding what skills and training local employers will require in their future workforce and ensuring that those relevant training courses are available at the local trade training centre. It really is a case of linking local job requirements with the training institutions that are in that area.

The feedback I've received from students at our trade training centres is overwhelmingly positive, with the students I've spoken to not only achieving great outcomes during their training but feeling very positive about the prospect of going out in the future and finding a job, once their training is complete. To learn and be able to apply hands-on skills in areas like building and construction, mechanics or cooking gets students excited not only about the skills they are learning but about their future in the workforce. It is amazing to hear some of the stories coming out of trade training centres in Tasmania—positive stories where students are being recruited by local businesses for jobs and apprenticeships, and where students who may have seemed lost during their time in the traditional classroom discover their passion for cooking, building or working on cars. Indeed, many of the students I have been speaking to recently are undertaking multiple training qualifications because they're not necessarily sure of exactly what part of the workforce they want to go into. They've had one experience, they've got one certificate and they understand the value in having a multitude of skills, so they're building on what they're learning and trying to get a diverse understanding of relevant skills that they might need at some point in the workforce. It's a very well balanced education that these kids are receiving at trade training centres. These are amongst some of the skilled jobs that we need for the future, and providing students with access to skills and training in these areas will ensure that they are ready for the workforce.

Speaking of jobs for the future, Tasmania has an immense competitive advantage over other states when it comes to energy security. Our hydro and renewable energy sector is the envy of other states. The potential to expand our renewable energy resource will require new and skilled workers to work on these nation-building projects. The proposed second interconnector across Bass Strait, the Marinus Link project, has been identified recently as one of the 15 major projects that the Morrison coalition government has given priority status. This project will enable another generation of hydroelectricity development and other energy developments, providing a huge economic and job creation boost for Tasmania. Again, we know that we are going to need skilled workers to undertake these projects. So, to ensure we have the skilled workforce that we need, the Morrison government has committed $17 million through the Energising Tasmania project to equip Tasmanians with the skills to support the Battery of the Nation and Marinus Link initiatives. Energising Tasmania will deliver up to 2½ thousand fully subsidised training places, including traineeships, apprenticeships and preapprenticeships in areas of identified skills need. The deal will ensure assistance of up to $1,000 per learner, also available to cover costs associated with training, such as books and materials. Energising Tasmania is part of the Morrison government's $585 million Delivering Skills for Today and Tomorrow package. As I said, Marinus Link and Battery of the Nation are very exciting projects for Tasmania. I have spoken many times before in this place about just how excited I am as a Tasmanian that we are investing in these projects locally. As I said, we know that we will need skills within our workforce to do these projects, and that's why this government has invested in training locally—to make sure that our local workforce is appropriately trained to deliver on Marinus Link and Battery of the Nation.

The Morrison government has also committed, locally in Tasmania, $7 million to assist in the construction of a new Trades and Water Centre of Excellence in the state's south to support more Tasmanians to take up careers in trades and electrotechnology. This investment complements the $14 million already committed by the Gutwein Tasmanian Liberal government, which has been a champion of renewable energy development in the state alongside the Morrison coalition government. The campus in the south will expand its training platform to train students for building and construction, plumbing and water, refrigeration and air conditioning, and smart building technologies. This is a very exciting investment in the south of Tasmania that will make sure that our VET sector continues to be strong and continues to align with the skills that we know our workforce is going to need coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

When I gave my first speech in this place, I referenced the fact that I stood for the Senate because I've seen too many Tasmanians have to leave our island for job opportunities. They don't feel that they have job opportunities locally at home. Since the Morrison coalition government was elected, I've seen the change in the culture of Tasmania. We are looking more to opportunities at home. I certainly wouldn't want to see the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our local economy being that young Tasmanians feel that they can't have opportunities locally, that we go back to the dark old days where everyone used to leave our island for work. So I'm certainly glad to see this government taking seriously the issues of skills and training in our local areas, particularly in our regional areas, to make sure that young people have the skills they need to be able to work locally so that we don't see another generation of Tasmanians leaving our island for work, to make sure that young Tasmanians can work at home if they want to.

I certainly hope that COVID-19 hasn't completely railroaded our plans. I'm a proud Tasmanian. I want to see more opportunities for young Tasmanians at home. I think strengthening our VET sector through legislation like that we are discussing here today is a really important way to do that. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It seems appropriate to be talking about national vocational education and training during this week, National Skills Week. This is a chance for us to acknowledge just how important TAFE and training are for our communities. Right now, as we face a jobs crisis in this country, we must acknowledge that TAFE and training are a key part of getting our country back on track. But this bill is just another tweak, and it's a tweak from a third-term government which has actually spent seven years undermining and underfunding our critical TAFE system. While this bill largely implements the recommendations of independent reviews that have been supported by the sector, there are still some concerns. There remains uncertainty as to how some of the changes contained in this bill will work in practice. This isn't helped by the lack of consultation that many stakeholders in the sector have reported on this bill.

But let's look at the real issue here, which is this government's record of failure and neglect on skills and training—seven years, three terms, three prime ministers, each of them just as responsible as the last for the skills crisis that Australia currently finds itself in. This is a skills crisis that existed before the COVID-19 crisis, a skills crisis that will hold back Australia's economic recovery. In this country, we have a serious mismatch between the skills that workers have to offer and the skills that businesses need. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, more than two million people were unable to find enough work. At the same time, businesses couldn't find workers with the skills that they needed. That has got a whole lot worse. Today over 2.5 million Australians are unemployed or underemployed. This is a number that we know, tragically, is predicted to keep rising.

If you look at the government's own skills shortage list, you will find that as a country we are lacking people with the skills to become bakers, nurses, electricians, midwives, early childhood educators, teachers and so many more. Employers are actually crying out for people for these roles. So why is it that so many children finishing school today cannot count on their government to deliver them the skills, training and education that are needed to fill those vacancies? These are core jobs, essential jobs, and yet as a country we can't fill them. This is just one example of how the government can barely manage today's economy, let alone manage the recovery and the future that we need to grapple with right now.

Why do we have those skills shortages? It is because of seven years of cuts, seven years of neglect. In Victoria, my home state, we've seen the loss of 35,000 apprentices and trainees since the coalition came to government. That's a loss of over one-third of Victoria's apprentices and trainees. Across the nation, over 140,000 apprentices and trainees have been lost. The Liberals and Nationals have cut $3 billion from TAFE and training. We've heard today that Treasury expects effective unemployment to reach 13 per cent by the end of the year. We currently have over one million Australians unemployed—the first time in Australia's history that that figure has been reached. TAFE, training and apprenticeships are going to be crucial in ensuring that Australians have the skills for the jobs that become available as we recover from this recession. So we cannot afford for the Morrison government to continue down this path of cuts to and neglect of our public TAFE and training system, a path that will undermine our recovery, a path that will undermine the opportunity for so many Australians to get the education they need to secure the jobs that they need today and for the future.

These cuts are locking Australians out of TAFE and training, and that is locking Australians out of jobs. This is what it should be all about right now for this government—jobs, saving jobs, creating jobs and making sure Australians have the skills to do those jobs. At a time when unemployment and underemployment are at record levels, this government cannot tell us what its plan is for jobs. This government has no plan for our recovery. Right now, the government is far more interested in photo ops, another press release, another press conference and another reactive announcement, without the follow-through that is really needed.

What is the JobTrainer program? What is it going to do to make up for seven years of cuts to and neglect of TAFE and training? What is the HomeBuilder program? It's a program that is not building any homes. And the JobMaker program? If someone in the government could tell us what that is we would really appreciate it. It's another program, another slogan, another name without a plan and without anything real that Australians can get behind to know that they are going to have good, decent and secure jobs with the help of this government. This government is too busy announcing plans that are all talk and no substance, plans that are so light on detail they don't really make it past 24 hours in the media.

When it comes to TAFE, training and skills, this government vacated the field when it came to power seven years ago. A government without a plan for education and skills is a government without a plan for the future. Right now, it screams of a government without a plan for our economic recovery either. Now, more than ever, we need a government that is serious about creating good, decent and secure jobs and one that will provide Australians with the skills they need to do those jobs. No more nonplans, no more empty announcements and no more tweaks to legislation—we need a real plan for jobs and we need it now.

Unlike the Liberals, Labor understand the value of TAFE and training. We know that vocational education is a key part of Australia's recovery. We will always back a strong, comprehensive regulatory compliance and education framework for ASQA. We'll support a fair and considered approach to ASQA reforms. We'll support this bill. But this bill in the current environment is just more tweaks to a vocational training sector that needs a national plan and needs proper support from this government.

We know that we're going to need skilled workers to recover from this recession and that people desperately need good and secure jobs that are supported by quality training. The Labor team are focused on this and we have always been focused on this. Last year, Labor leader Anthony Albanese announced our intention to establish 'Jobs and Skills Australia', and this is the type of reform we should be talking about right here, right now, today. An independent statutory authority would provide a genuine partnership with business leaders, state and territory governments, unions and education providers, bringing everyone together to make sure that workers have access to the skills and jobs that they need and that businesses have access to the skilled workers that they need and are seeking as well. This will be a model of genuine partnership and collaboration, investing in the skills of Australian workers. That is the sort of reform that we should be talking about here today in the Senate and in this parliament in the middle of this crisis, in the middle of the first recession in almost 30 years. We need this kind of plan now, more than ever, as we look forward to a recovery post COVID-19. On this side of the chamber, in the Labor team, we have a vision for decent and stable jobs that are supported by quality training. This is in Labor's DNA. We see education and training as an investment in our future, and we will always support hardworking Australians who want a quality education. We will always support good, secure jobs for all Australians.

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Amendment (Governance and Other Matters) Bill 2020, and I do so with the great pleasure that my good friend and colleague Senator Michaelia Cash is in front of me in the chamber, because no-one is a greater advocate for jobs—and, particularly, VET jobs—in this place than Minister Cash. I have been lucky enough to be out and about with Minister Cash on a few occasions over the past couple of months, and one of the key focuses of our visits together, particularly into regional WA, has been the needs of businesses in attracting and training high-quality VET graduates and apprentices. It's great to see, through this measure, the government again building on the strong commitment we have to making sure that our VET sector is as strong as possible.

Nobody doubts and nobody would argue—certainly not Minister Cash—that there are some major challenges ahead of the VET sector in the current circumstances. But the Australian government's commitment to a skilled economy—to boost our economic recovery—has never been stronger. In fact, it is one of the key ways in which we are going to be able to build our economy out of this pandemic induced economic downturn, one of the ways we will be growing our economy into the future and one of the ways we will be making sure as many Australians as possible—all those Australians who want a job—can get a job.

We as a government are contributing an additional $2 billion to the new $2½ billion JobTrainer package dedicated to reforming the vocational education and training sector and keeping apprentices in jobs. There will be $1 billion allocated to set up the JobTrainer fund, with 50 per cent to be funded by the states and territories in recognition of the economic benefits that flow to those state and territories from a strong job-training sector. This will mean more Australians will have access to free or low-cost training places, particularly in areas of need, and we certainly see that out and about in rural WA. A further $1½ billion will be allocated to expanding and extending the Supporting Apprentices and Trainees wage subsidy, which was first announced in March of this year. The package responds to the challenges of the labour market because, as I have said, of the COVID-19 pandemic and is the next step in the sector reform process outlined by the Prime Minister as part of the government's JobMaker agenda.

Skills reform and strengthening our VET sector is central to the government's JobMaker plan to support Australia's economic recovery and our future growth. An unprecedented number of Australians are without work—many for the first time in their lives—due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On top of this, around 250,000 students will leave school at the end of this year. In that environment, obviously, it will be difficult for many of those students or ex-students to find employment immediately, in which case the VET sector particularly will become an increasingly important source of training opportunities.

As I said, I have been out and about with Minister Cash over the last few months. I want to highlight a few of the opportunities that are out there in regional Western Australia in particular and also some of the challenges we do face. Most recently, I was at the Bunbury Jobs Fair with Minister Cash. Jobs fairs are an extraordinary opportunity, and, at that particular jobs fair, the Kalgoorlie-Boulder Chamber of Commerce and Industry came down to Bunbury. Kalgoorlie has a particular challenge at the moment. It has a significant number of employment opportunities available but not the people willing to relocate to Kalgoorlie to take them up. It faces a particular set of challenges. This is quite ironic at a time when we're seeing, unfortunately, the unemployment rate increasing. I give a shout-out to all those who can get to Kalgoorlie and have the skills required, although there's a lot of training available for upskilling into those jobs.

One of the great things Minister Cash and I heard at that job fair was that, as a result of the previous job fair in Kalgoorlie, a number of individuals have entered full-time employment. So we are seeing actions linking individuals with training and directly resulting in job outcomes for those individuals. That is a key driver of the future economic growth we all want and need to see for Australia to recover strongly from the pandemic. It also gives individuals hope and opportunities that were not necessarily there before. These job fairs are a great way of linking people not just with a job but with training and a job. That's one of the key things we need to keep reminding all the people out there who want a job and are looking for an opportunity.

The job fair program is certainly great. Obviously these are challenging times for large events like that to proceed. I know the minister's department put an extraordinary amount of effort into making sure that the event itself was COVID safe. There were a large number of participating exhibitors who had jobs or training on offer and also a large number of individuals keen to see what opportunities are out there and to talk about the potential work and training opportunities that are available. So even with the COVID-safe requirements that we are all currently living under we saw a large number of people turning out and learning about those opportunities and talking to businesses and training providers face-to-face.

We saw a large number of businesses. There were some Indigenous-owned cleaning businesses, for example. One business we met started up in the last couple of years and has gone from strength to strength. It has grown from two employees to 20 employees in the space of a couple of years. This is the kind of activity want to see in our economy. We want to see training available to enable people who are unskilled or who need to reskill to enter those growing job opportunities.

More recently I was at De Rosa's Highway Motors in Waroona in south-west WA. Nick and his team are one of the premier farm machinery dealers in the south-west of WA. They service dairy, sheep and beef farmers as well as orchardists in the district. Nick is a salt-of-the-earth character from the bush. He's really passionate about giving local youth a go. He wants local youth to take up the opportunities that are available in his hometown. This business has been there for the vast majority of my life—I'd hate to say how long it has been there. When we drove to our own farm in Pemberton we passed De Rosa's Highway Motors in Waroona on many hundreds, if not thousands, of occasions. They are an institution in that part of the world. As I said, Nick is dedicated to giving local kids a go in mechanical apprenticeships. One thing I hear constantly throughout regional Western Australia is the need for people to take up mechanical apprenticeships and to have an opportunity to do diesel mechanic training in the VET sector.

AFGRI, another large farm machinery dealership throughout the Wheatbelt of Western Australia, has a significant training program of its own. It has something like 25 ongoing apprenticeships in any given year. It trains a lot of people in the full knowledge that the skills are highly sought after. A lot of those young men and women will end up being poached by mining companies. That's the reality of the training they do, and they train more than they need on the basis that many of them will go elsewhere. That's great for those individuals. It's a great opportunity. Those kinds of businesses are putting that effort into local training because it means they can continue to grow their own businesses, it means they can give locals an opportunity to get some high-quality skills, and it gives those young people an opportunity to develop a base of skills that allow them to move, to seek opportunities elsewhere and to advance their own life prospects—by perhaps going to the mining industry for a few years before coming back to the Wheatbelt, or perhaps going to the mining industry permanently. There are some challenges, absolutely, but also some wonderful opportunities out there for young Australians and Australians who are seeking to retrain.

Finally, on the situation in WA, a couple of months ago, Minister Cash and I visited John Fitzhardinge at Dongara Marine—again, a wonderful success story in regional WA. This is a boat-building company that has been building boats in Western Australia since 1975. Situated in what is a tiny coastal community, Dongara, just south of Geraldton, it's a regional business that is absolutely punching well above its weight, taking on a wide range of projects for both the private sector and government clients. It's building, for example, six-metre tenders for ecotourism in the Abrolhos Islands region, rigid inflatable marine rescue vessels and the 20-metre Berkeley class pilot boats in service in the Fremantle Ports. This boat has been described by one Fremantle pilot as the Rolls-Royce of pilot boats. Dongara Marine are also involved in building the new Transperth catamaran, the MV Tricia, which plies the Swan River, just down from the CPO, if anyone is ever over in Western Australia—I know it's a bit hard these days for us all to move around. The Swan River Transperth 'cat ferries' are very well known to all Western Australians and are very much a feature of the city. The fact that that new vessel, the MV Tricia, was built just north of Perth in a small regional town is a great credit to Dongara Marine and to John and his business partners, who continue to support the opportunities for young local apprentices in that industry.

When we were up there, Minister Cash and I saw a number of young Australians who had recently arrived in apprenticeships or were just about to complete apprenticeships—again, across a range of fields, from boat building to diesel mechanics to electrical engineering. So the opportunities are out there, particularly in the regions, and this government is committed to doing everything it can to support those opportunities. It is a difficult time for those who do not have a job, but the key message from today is that the opportunities are out there. Maybe you have to think a little bit differently about what those opportunities may be for you, going forward, but when you see the number of people who go along to events like the jobs fairs in Kalgoorlie and in Bunbury you know that there are opportunities for training and for jobs. There are also many, many people out there seeking those opportunities. I think that is a very positive thing for the future.

Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Amendment (Governance and Other Matters) Bill 2020. Australia's vocational education and training sector is a vital driver of our economy. The VET sector provides education and training for key industries and services through a network of private and public registered training organisations. Having a high-quality VET sector is fundamental to keeping our workforce skilled and our economy productive. However, due to the debacle of Labor's VET FEE-HELP scheme, the quality and reputation of Australia's VET sector have taken a significant hit, where once the sector was regarded as among the best in the world. This bill comes as one more essential step in a long line of amendments brought by this Liberal-National government to repair the damage done by Labor and get vocational education and training in Australia back on track. The bill deals specifically with the national VET regulator, ASQA, making several changes and improvements to increase its efficiency and transparency in regulating the sector.

You will recall, Mr Acting Deputy President, that the VET FEE-HELP scheme was introduced in 2008 and operated as a HECS type loan for vocational education students, where the government paid tuition costs and students would start paying off their loan once their income reached a high enough threshold. At the time, the loans were quite limited and were not widely used, which led to a further overhaul of the scheme in 2012 by the Gillard Labor government. The revised version of the scheme dropped many of the earlier restrictions in an attempt to open the scheme to more students and trainees. This weakened the dam wall, so to speak, and opened a lucrative niche for a flood of private registered training organisations to move in and take advantage of the loan scheme as a government funded cash cow, in many cases with little regard for student outcomes. The RTOs maximised their profits simply by maximising their enrolments, irrespective of the circumstances or background of the students they enrolled. By signing up as many students as possible, unscrupulous RTOs could quickly establish huge cash flows, as the government paid based on the number of student enrolments, regardless of whether or not students finished the course, qualified or even were able to meet the requirements of the course.

To rake in as much taxpayer money as possible, some RTOs went to great lengths to trick, coerce and bribe students into signing up for their courses. A common and quite blatant inducement advertised by RTOs was to offer free laptops or iPads simply for signing up to a course. In making their sales pitch, shonky training providers would often deliberately target uninformed people, implying there were no upfront costs and misleading them about their liability to pay fees and service the debt. Brokers were hired to recruit the most vulnerable people, including the old, unemployed, less educated and disadvantaged, using the marketing tactics of cold calling, handing out leaflets, setting up shopping centre booths and selling door to door. On top of this, many courses were of very poor quality and extremely overpriced. In one instance, an online business course from a private RTO with no reputation to speak of cost a jaw-dropping $8,000 more than a similar course offered by a prestigious Melbourne university.

Yet the Gillard government just kept paying. There was no quality control and there were no audits or checks and balances—nothing. Labor just kept shovelling taxpayers' money out the door. This behaviour from RTOs was outrageously unethical and, due to the poor design of the scheme, far too easy to get away with. The total value of loans jumped from $25.6 million in 2009 to $2.9 billion in 2015. Many of the students who received these loans will never reach the income threshold, meaning that the costs will be forever borne by hardworking Australian taxpayers.

This catastrophe was entirely due to the Labor government's negligence and mishandling of the scheme. An audit of the scheme published in 2016 found that the government did not establish processes to ensure that all objectives, risks and consequences were managed in implementing the expanded scheme. In effect, the quality and integrity of much of the available education and training was trashed in the name of expanding the sector. Labor's VET FEE-HELP scheme simply did not have an appropriate level of accountability and regulation to balance the systemic risk of abuse that comes with such a scheme.

There is invariably a great deal of risk involved when it comes to the government handing out so-called free money, so strict regulation is needed in order to mitigate those risks. Legislation must always be designed to account for the lowest common denominator, with all the contingencies provided for, because if there is an opportunity for exploitation there will always be someone out there to do it. Government should never be in such a hurry as to let enthusiasm for change take pre-eminence over accountability, transparency and due diligence when it comes to good and effective legislation.

The coalition has been working for several years to clean up the mess caused by the VET FEE-HELP scheme. Reform in this area has occurred incrementally and methodically to limit disruption to legitimate RTOs and to protect the many students who use the loans scheme. The point needs to be made that, despite the financial abuses that occurred, unscrupulous RTOs made up only a relatively small portion of providers, and students shouldn't suffer any further because of bad policy. Most significantly, in this process the VET FEE-HELP scheme was entirely scrapped in 2016 and replaced with a new system, the VET Student Loans scheme, which is far better designed, with stricter vetting and enforced loan caps.

Today the government is introducing this bill in order to further improve the national VET regulator, ASQA, to keep RTOs in check so that widespread abuse of the system won't be possible in the future. Having an appropriately governed regulator means that skills training will be delivered in a more efficient manner. This is important—the high-quality sort of skills training that is needed to help us come up with the best possible post-COVID workforce. The new governance structure within ASQA means that a CEO and advisory council will be able to take a greater educative role and have a more modern approach to regulating the VET sector. The new expert advisory council means that those who are best placed to understand the nuances of this highly diverse sector are best positioned to help guide it into the future.

Important privacy safeguards will be put in place to ensure that the data of vulnerable students is not shared inappropriately and will also help buttress the vulnerable against potential abuse such as we saw under Labor. It is tremendously important to recognise that at a time like this skills and training are more important than ever. VET reform is a key pillar of the Morrison government's JobMaker plan. We on this side of the chamber know that all jobs are worth supporting, not just those of tertiary-educated Labor and Greens voters in the inner cities. We have announced $2.8 billion to support apprentices and trainees since the COVID pandemic hit, and we will continue to keep pushing to ensure that vocational education has a strong backbone of funding and rigorous and appropriate oversight. It is and always will be core to our economy and should never be considered an afterthought. A stable, well-functioning VET sector that continues to turn out skilled, appropriately qualified workers is essential to Australian industry. It is essential to the strength of our economy and essential to the wellbeing of our society as a whole.

This bill will make the necessary improvements that are needed in order for ASQA to fulfil an effective certification and oversight role, providing the checks and balances needed for the vocational education and training sector to flourish. A good and effective regulator was one of the key elements missing from Labor's VET FEE-HELP scheme. It was a vital missing ingredient that almost guaranteed that rampant misconduct and poor quality would infect many RTOs. With the passage of this bill ASQA will take a giant step forward to be the highly effective regulator our VET sector needs. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Amendment (Governance and Other Matters) Bill 2020. I will be voting for this bill. Everyone knows that ASQA needs reform. Australia needs ASQA to be a cop on the beat. We've seen too much evidence of what happens without one.

We've seen providers take our kids for a ride, charging them tens of thousands of dollars for qualifications worth little more than the paper they're printed on. Some of those kids, by the way, are still waiting for their money back. So, if someone could get onto that for about the third time since I've been in here, that would be good. Some of these guys have really ripped off our kids. So, if we can get onto it, that would be great. It's about time the government started doing something about that. Those qualifications are not worth the paper they're printed on.

The fact is that the government is tinkering at the edges here. What's new? They're doing the bare minimum they need to. What's new? It makes me sad to say this, but they just don't care enough to make our TAFEs thrive. It's all just lip-service. Our tradies and the people they work for need so much more. They need a vision. They need support from government to get kids trained up and into jobs that will rebuild our economy. Don't tell me we're going to start rebuilding our economy, we're going into manufacturing and we're going into infrastructure, when our kids out there have got no jobs and no apprenticeships because the TAFEs are not up and running. This is the problem. And it's becoming a bigger problem. I've got people down there in Tasmania waiting 18 months to get new houses built because we don't have qualified tradesmen and we don't have the apprentices because we don't have the TAFEs open. That's the problem. That's what the economists and the government tells us that we need to make our way out of this economic crisis.

Everyone knows that construction, manufacturing and care work will get us through. That's what our economy and our people need and they need it now. They needed it yesterday. My question to the government is: how will we do that when our TAFEs are on their knees? They are sick of the lip-service that's coming from the coalition. They have absolutely had enough of it. This bill is a bit of nothing, basically. That's all it is. It is a waste of bloody time in this Senate chamber. Maybe the regulator's board's operations could be improved. Do you know what else could be improved? Literally everything about the way we do trades and training in this country. Trades and training, that's my problem with this bill. It's a bit like fixing the roof when the foundations are already dodgy. What's the point? We have states announcing record spending on infrastructure but we don't have the tradies to get it done. How about that? That's what happens when you rely on all these 457s and everything else in the past. Things are going to change and no-one's changing with them. We're not changing in here. We're still not ready to give our kids an opportunity through TAFE. We're still not spending the money in there.

TAFEs are where our fireys, our paramedics and our aged-care workers are trained. They are meant to be essential workers. If these jobs are classed as essential, how come it's not essential to fix where they are being trained? How do you get them trained if you don't have the facilities prepared to train them? Don't even start me on not having the teachers prepared to train them, because you don't have that either. It is shameful. Here we go with the government once again making a big song and dance about this so-called JobTrainer program. It is just a reworded something else; that's all. I'll tell you what, this government does slogans pretty well, but the trouble is you've been doing them that well, the Australian people have caught up with you, and they're onto it.

What I want to know is: what is the government actually doing to make sure our kids can get a decent vocational education after they've finished school? How are we going to get those unemployed workers out there retrained and into a decent job? Our TAFEs should be there to do that for people. Australians should be able to rely on their local TAFE to give them the skills they need to contribute to rebuilding our economy. But I'll tell you what these big talkers have done so far. They've brought out their fancy marketing campaign to try and hide—

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, Senator Lambie! You will be in continuation when this debate resumes.