Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Likewise, I thank all who have been involved in the preparation of the committee's report. The report very clearly reaffirms the centrality of government providers in the vocational education and training sector. While recognising there are shortcomings in the TAFE system across the states and territories, the overwhelming weight of evidence of this inquiry leads us to conclude that affordability, accessibility and investment in innovation in the trade training market must be underpinned by a strong, stable public-sector provider with institutional knowledge and a capacity for long-term investment.

I quote the evidence of Anthony Kittel, the driving force behind the award-winning South Australian company REDARC Electronics that is showing that, with a commitment to R&D and the dedication of staff, Australia can manufacture and sell into the globally competitive market. Mr Kittel said:

My concern is that we are going to this privatisation model and we will lose that long-term relationship we have developed with a provider that has got the facilities and the capital equipment to be able to provide for our needs.

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… my experience with private providers is that they are short term. They win a contract and they are gone tomorrow.

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For us to remain competitive, for a long-term goal, we need those foundation skills maintained in an entity like TAFE.

He goes on to say:

My experience over 17 years of running my own company is that private providers will do everything possible to get that course down the shortest amount of time. I can come in tomorrow and borrow someone else's course, but I will not deliver the quality that I would if it was my normal day-to-day job and I was doing over a large number of people and had the ability to upskill myself to deliver that training.

I congratulate REDARC for recently winning the Telstra Business of the Year award.

Of course, there are challenges in the TAFE sector. We had some very interesting evidence from South Australia—this time the Australian Submarine Corporation. They told us that TAFE was considered a vital contributor to their workforce and that TAFE had delivered approximately 56 per cent of total trainees that the air warfare destroyer workforce has undertaken. Mr Hamilton stressed that we need a VET system that ensures 'graduates are technologically malleable and are thereby able to rapidly assimilate new technology and procedures'. Mr Hamilton expressed concern that TAFE was using equipment that was out of date. With the rate of technological change in the manufacturing sector, equipment needs to be turned over much more than every 20 years. In Germany it is more like five years. The TAFE sector needs to look at leasing rather than buying equipment in order to help deal with this problem. The Minerals Council pointed out some of the rigidities in pay scales in TAFE that prevented people with skills in high demand from being paid differently—and others in the industry agreed with that—and the need to ensure that staff have contemporary industry experience.

The committee inspected provisions around the state, as the chairman said, including WA Central TAFE. The facilities we saw were fantastic, including the mine simulator that uses an old sewer viaduct and enables shot-firer and rock-driller trainees to learn not only the skills required but also whether they can deal with the physical issues of working underground.

I commend the evidence presented by the principal and VET instructors at Morley Senior High School. This school has been an RTO for the past decade and has a profound understanding of the benefit of introducing serious trade training in schools. In the adolescent oriented environment of a school, students can be introduced to a variety of trade and get a sense of the trade or industry they are suited to. They then can complete pre-apprenticeships in the secure environment of the school. This reduces the very high attrition rate of kids who leave school at 15 and 16 to start a trade from scratch. It offers as much better use of time at school for those students and ensures that there is less wasted investment by employers and TAFE. I support the need for us to look very closely at the skills that are being attained. I would urge ASQA and its WA counterpart to become much more active in monitoring whether those students being assessed as having skills actually have them. We have students facing much higher fees and, indeed, they are now having to borrow to fund these courses under the HELP scheme. It is more important than ever that we impose real quality control on those we allow to deliver this training.

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