Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the report presented by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment, Workplace Relations and Workforce Participation entitled Current vacancies: workforce challenges facing the Australian tourism sector. The tourism industry plays a very important role in Australia. In 2003-04, tourism contributed 3.5 per cent of gross value added, 3.9 per cent of total gross domestic product, 5.6 per cent of total employment and 12.1 per cent of total exports. More than 550,000 Australians generated $17 billion in Australian export earnings. On those figures, you can see just how important the tourism industry is to Australia.

The number of international visitors to Australia is increasing. In 2004, there were over five million international visitors, and that was a 9.9 per cent increase on the previous year. Various countries contribute to those visitor numbers. New Zealand is by far the largest source of our international tourists. There is strong growth predicted in the tourism sector into the future.

However, the growth in the industry is sensitive to international events and it stands to be inhibited by the skills shortage that exists. The committee looked at the skills shortage and came up with a number of recommendations to address it. Overwhelmingly, the most important issues are, firstly, wages and conditions and, secondly, the lack of training and the lack of a career path for people working in the tourism industry. People employed in the tourism industry often view a job in that industry as a job that you do before you get a real job. The simple fact that there is no career path—or a very limited career path—impacts on the number of people who work in the industry.

The tourism industry has a very high turnover of workers. In large part, as I mentioned at the start of my comments, that is due to the very low wages that are paid to the workers in the industry. The conditions of work also impact on that, including the fact that people are required to work very long hours. There has been a shortage of chefs in Australia since the 1950s and it just continues to grow. We have heard of restaurants having to close their doors simply because they do not have the staff to operate them. Chefs and other people in that industry are quite often working when other people are out having their recreation. This places a big burden on the people employed in the industry.

It is also very interesting to note that, because of the relatively low wages and poor conditions, these workers do not have a commitment to the industry. At the hearings, the committee heard from the Hotel, Motel and Accommodation Association, who indicated that, over the years, there have been regular breaches of the laws within the industry whereby employers have not adhered to award conditions. Peter Olah, who was giving evidence to the committee, said that Work Choices had actually allowed employers to now do legally what they had been doing illegally for some time. What this shows is that employers do not have a commitment to their staff. If they did have a commitment to their staff, that would go some way to addressing the skills shortage that exists in the industry.

It is also important to recognise that many tourism businesses are small, marginal businesses. They have a high turnover of owners. Quite often they close down. A large percentage of them are family businesses, single-owner businesses or partnerships. These businesses do not have the depth of training to operate successfully over a long period of time. The businesses are also often seasonal. In the snowfields it is very much a winter industry and in the Top End, once again, the peaks tend to be in the winter. Each area has its peaks. I thought the Whitsundays had a very good approach to tourism, in that all the operators in the Whitsundays join together as a group to try to improve the industry, to give some depth to the industry, and to draw on the expertise of, and to provide support to, others.

The recommendations of the report went across a number of areas. We recognise that there was a lack of data collection and analysis of the labour needs within the tourism industry. It is very much an ad hoc approach. I think that is symbolised by those small businesses that are operating in a very unplanned environment. They are struggling and reacting to the circumstances of the day rather than having a planned approach to their business. Anyone who has any sort of relationship with business knows that the most important thing is to have in place a plan and to work towards that plan.

As a committee we thought there needed to be more comprehensive workforce planning done within the industry. We also thought that there needed to be a partnership with regional research industries, institutions and industry bodies to undertake a review and analysis of employment data for tourism and related sectors—once again adopting a much more planned approach. This will provide support to employers whilst at the same time encouraging employers to think about the needs of their staff. Because of the seasonal nature of the workforce, we felt that the development of a seasonal workforce management plan would be of benefit to the industry and at the same time be of benefit to those people who work in the industry. I feel it is very much an industry that by its nature does not make a total commitment to its workers. It is an industry that sees itself as being seasonal, that sees itself as offering an employment opportunity to workers on a very short-term basis and that does not value its workers to the degree that makes a commitment to their training and develops that career plan that I think is ever so important if the industry is to thrive. There are very good overseas examples of where this commitment is made and where tourism is considered not as a job you have before you get a job but as your real-life job. If that is to happen in Australia and if we are really to address these shortages, we have to address the issues surrounding wages and conditions and the ongoing training of workers.

I would also like to put on the record that within the industry it is important that we deal with the issue of prior learning—recognise prior learning and reduce the barriers to recognising prior learning—and actively promote the competency based apprenticeship pathway. These are all recommendations. In the report we deal with visas, but my contribution to this debate has concentrated on the fact that we need to make a real commitment to training and a real commitment to wages and conditions if we are to address the skills shortage, because there is competition from other industries that pay a lot more to their workers and that have much better conditions for their workers than the tourism industry. Unless something is done to make it more attractive—unless issues like housing and the long-term career paths of people working in the industry are addressed—then we will continue to have this skills shortage that affects this industry that is very valuable to the Australian economy.

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