Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question. This nation does face a skills crisis which is adding to inflationary pressures. We have been warned about it, and the former government was warned about it by the RBA on 20 occasions. I know that in this place there are members opposite who simply do not understand the dimensions of this crisis. I refer them to the words of Suncorp Chairman and Tabcorp Director, John Story, who is also the Chairman of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, who delivered this damning assessment of the former government’s approach to skills shortages:

We should have been addressing infrastructure issues. We should have been addressing skills shortages five years ago. I mean, we talked about it. These issues were discussed around board tables like this for the past 10 years, and the chickens are coming home to roost and there is no short-term fix.

That is a message from business about the dimension of skill shortages. Whilst business is delivering this message, members opposite live in denial. We have had the shadow minister for training saying that skills shortages were ‘just a matter of where we are in the business cycle’—a denial that there is even a skills crisis. And the shadow Treasurer has been quoted as saying:

The truth is ... Australia does not have a chronic skills shortage ...

This is the opposition in denial about their legacy and in denial about a contemporary problem facing the Australian community and its economy. Today’s Grant Thornton survey shows that 58 per cent of the businesses surveyed identified skill shortages as the biggest constraint to their growth. Whilst the former minister for vocational education and training may not have done much about it, at least he was prepared to acknowledge that there was a skills crisis when he said:

We have got a problem with skills shortage. I mean, we knew it was coming, but it has arrived with force and, you know, it is only going to get worse.

How were these skill shortages created? If we look at where the former government put investment in skills development, we see some remarkable things. We saw $3 million invested in the provision of training and qualifications in nail technology. Mr Speaker, you might well think to yourself: ‘That’s good. Hammering nails into wood, building things—skill shortages in the construction industry—$3 million into skills training for nail technology.’ You might be thinking that that is a good thing. It is not those sorts of nails that we are talking about. We are talking about fingernails. We are talking about $3 million being invested in skills training so that people can have manicures—a file and paint, a set of acrylics. That is what the former government invested in: $3 million in nail technology.

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