Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As I was saying before, my home state of Western Australia has had a very high demand for skilled workers over the past 10 years, in particular due to the state's mining and housing boom. Although the resources industry is currently on a construction phase downturn, major infrastructure developments are still being rolled out and a significant number of homes are still being built, particularly in Perth's outer suburbs.

This of course includes major infrastructure projects such as the billion-dollar Gateway WA project and the $1.6 billion Perth Freight Link project, which are both currently being rolled out through my electorate of Swan. I went into greater detail about these major infrastructure projects in my speech on the cognate appropriation bills earlier this week. For those members who are not aware, these projects are already boosting Western Australia's economy, alleviating road congestion and creating about 1,300 construction jobs just for the Gateway WA project alone, with the majority of works being undertaken by more than 600 Western Australian businesses. Each of these projects requires skilled work men and women who would have completed a national vocational education course to become qualified. Many of the businesses that I have discussed would have apprentices working for them and completing their theoretical units at TAFE, or a fully qualified adult may be undertaking a course to gain further skills to help them in the workplace, such as an electrician undertaking a business course if they are looking to become a business owner in the future.

I might just add, on the Gateway WA project, that it is well ahead of time. It is six months ahead of schedule, and it is now at 60 per cent completion. We see that the coalition and state governments are doing a wonderful job driving that particular project.

As I have said, there are a significant range of VET courses, which are regulated on a national level by the Australian Skills Quality Authority, or ASQA. According to ASQA, these courses include:

… technical and further education (TAFE) institutes, adult and community education providers and agricultural colleges, as well as private providers, community organisations, industry skill centres, and commercial and enterprise training providers. In addition, some universities and schools provide VET.

When encouraging students to undertake VET courses, the government always, of course, promotes those industries listed on the National Skills Needs List, as this assists students to know which industries have greater pathways for employment once they are qualified. The list includes a range of industries from automotive electricians to fitters, plumbers and upholsterers.

What stood out to me, though, is that the air-conditioning and mechanical services plumbers and air-conditioning and refrigeration mechanics are the two top required skills on this national list. As you would know, that was my background for more than 25 years. Even though the list is in alphabetical order, I am sure that members will put that fact out of their minds while I focus a small amount of time on these important industries!

These employment pathways stood out to me because, as many members know, and as I said before, I spent more than 25 years in business in the air-conditioning, heating, ventilation and refrigeration sector. I had good employees, but it is definitely an industry that needs to be promoted and boosted to ensure that high-quality work men and women continue to be trained, which is why the VET sector is absolutely crucial to the Australian economy.

If we want to have Australian owned businesses with locally manufactured products, we need a skilled workforce to create those things and provide the necessary services. After all, we live in the 21st century and have an expectation that, when we flick a light switch on, the light will actually turn on, and if we turn the tap on we expect water to come out. But, if all of a sudden we have a significant decline in the number of electricians and plumbers our country has, we are going to be in a bit of trouble.

As I previously said, this is why this coalition government is implementing key legislation now to support our apprentices and to support vocational education and training to ensure that students are not deterred from seeking a qualification in these industries and to ensure that they are appropriately regulated. I have heard the Deputy Speaker talk about his child before in this chamber, and I just want to reiterate that—as I know I said before—my son is doing a bricklaying apprenticeship at the moment. He has already spoken to me about the idea of going on and doing further studies with VET so that he can not only be a bricklayer but go into running his own business and starting a construction business. So the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Amendment Bill 2015, the bill before the House, is a very important factor.

This idea of regulation in fact goes to the heart of the bill before the House, with the overall aim being to improve the quality of Australia's VET system. This will build on a number of reforms that the government has already implemented, including new national standards for the training providers, which came into effect on 1 January for new providers and will be implemented for existing providers on 1 April as part of the transitionary period.

The government has also committed $68 million over four years to ASQA to enforce new regulatory standards under a risk management model. The bill before the House will enhance this regulatory framework on a national level to give greater certainty to students, employers and the government that best practice is being undertaken. It will specifically provide ASQA with greater capacity to respond to emerging issues in the VET system and to more effectively regulate registered training organisations to ensure that dodgy providers are no longer able to damage this sector and also to give the transparency that providers need.

As Australian Council for Private Education and Training CEO Rod Camm said last month:

These measures are necessary to protect both students and colleges from the harmful impacts of a small number of poor quality providers who undermine the integrity of the entire system …

… After a necessary and welcome period of consultation by the government, I think we can all agree these reforms are urgent, and must be passed as soon as is practicable.

I guess that is another example of the government consulting with industry and consulting with associations and stakeholders within the economy. And I could not agree more with what Mr Camm said.

With 164,000 public VET students and approximately 42,000 apprentices in Western Australia—according to the relevant 2013 and 2014 statistics respectively—who are undertaking a training course, it is vital that the government and the industry work together to ensure that our students are getting the very best education we can provide. This is also particularly important for my electorate of Swan, which, as of last month, had 4,645 apprentices in training and more than 92 RTOs providing a range of training programs. The government is improving quality of teaching and we are encouraging more students. I also highlight that the government is directly responding to industry concerns about those dodgy providers, who, as I said, are undermining the integrity of the entire sector. The bill before the House will achieve this through a number of amendments to the National Vocational Education and Training Regulator Amendment Act 2011, including implementing a new instrument known as a Quality Standard to provide the Commonwealth with emergency powers to address quality issues within the sector.

As industry has identified during the government's consultation processes, the current time taken to respond to cases where a provider has not complied with ASQA's standards is too long—far too long. This is because the Commonwealth, if it is to change standards, must have the agreement of the states and territories. Although this is an important oversight mechanism, 12 months, to my mind and that of government and industry, is far too long to address issues of concern. These emergency powers will ensure the Australian government is able to consult with employees, training providers and state and territory governments to create a new quality standard within weeks. This rapid response time will ensure ASQA continues to meet its objective to maintain nationally consistent, high-quality training and assessment across Australia's VET system.

As I mentioned previously, a concern that has been made by students and industry is the lack of clarity around training providers and the qualifications a student will receive under many VET programs. This is largely due to the marketing of training and the type of information that must be provided to prospective students. The bill before the House will enhance the standards in these areas by requiring all organisations involved in the marketing of a VET course, including third parties or brokers, to identify which registered training organisation will be responsible for the qualification. This will ensure that students know which provider they are signing up for and can review the quality of that provider. Under the proposed amendment, ASQA will also be able to pursue anyone who does not clearly identify who is providing the training and to take action against any individual or organisation which contravenes this standard and provides false or misleading marketing material to prospective students.

Although I have discussed this bill in the context of enhancing oversight by ASQA as the regulatory body for VET programs, a key provision in this bill is also in line with the government's overall agenda to cut red tape. As members would be aware, the government has already cut $2.1 billion in red and green tape as part of our autumn and spring repeal days—as we are now into autumn, I am sure there is one coming; and I am sure the member for Chifley, who is at the table, would be interested in that—which is more than double the $1 billion in compliance savings that this government has committed to make each year. The bill before the House will reduce the compliance burden on industry in this context by extending the registration period for RTOs from five to seven years. This is in direct response to ASQA's advice that re-registration audits are the least effective method of identifying poor performing providers and that their resources would be better directed toward more targeted and random investigations and audits. This will also bring the registration requirements for RTOs in line with that of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, or TEQSA, registration.

The bill will also make a number of minor amendments to ensure that best practice is being exercised by the industry's national regulator. This includes provisions to allow ASQA to request information from any person who is purporting to be an RTO but who is not, to permit ASQA to share information with other entities where necessary and to streamline processes for ASQA to issue written directions. (Time expired)

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