Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Vocational Education and Skills) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on these amendments. There are two points in particular that I would like to make. Firstly, I support the amendments that will be before us, and potentially discussed in a little bit more detail shortly.

What I would like to say is that I am particularly keen to support the amendment that deals with the removal of the loan fees from students of the table B providers. In particular, that affects one of the universities in my electorate of McPherson on the Gold Coast—that is, Bond University. For some time I have worked with Bond University, with the Vice Chancellor, Professor Tim Brailsford, and with students at the university for the removal of the loan fees. It has been a contentious issue. I have fought long and hard to have those fees removed, so I'm absolutely delighted to support that amendment today.

The other point that I would particularly like to make is in respect of vocational education. Let me start by saying that we are most definitely the party that is going to produce the results in the vocational education field. When Labor were in government, they absolutely decimated the sector. I've said before and I will say again—and I will continue to say it—that Labor, when in government, brought vocational education in this country to its knees. They did that by significantly reducing employer incentives in the vocational education space, and apprenticeships in particular. Under the former Labor government, the number of apprentices that we had in training dropped dramatically. When I speak of apprentices, I am, of course, speaking of Australian apprenticeships, which include apprentices and trainees. This government has put $1.5 billion on the table to increase the number of apprentices that we have in training.

There are clearly some strong target areas that we need to look at, and we're working with a number of states. There are five states and territories that have signed on to the national partnership agreement: New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania, the ACT and the Northern Territory. We are continuing to work with them on the projects that they will be implementing to improve the number of apprentices that we have in training, not just in the coming year but for four years in total under the national partnership agreement, because this government recognises how important apprentices are to the future of Australia. So we'll be working with the states and territories in some targeted areas. We're certainly going to be looking at health, at ageing and at the disability sector. We'll also be looking at manufacturing, and we'll be looking at agriculture. We will work with every single state and territory to make sure that we are addressing the skills shortages that currently exist in this country and will continue to exist unless urgent action is taken.

So, when I say that we are the party that will stand up for vocational education, I can assure you that we have got the runs on the board, and we will continue to do that. It was just recently—maybe six weeks ago or maybe eight weeks ago—that one of the key stakeholders in the vocational education sector said to me that, for the first time, they can see the green shoots in vocational education, because, after such a long time in the darkness under Labor, we are now seeing some significant gains being made in that space. There is clearly more work to be done, but we have done a lot already to clean up the nightmare that we were left with when we took government.

Apprentices are and will continue to be our target into the future, but we will continue to look holistically at education. I've said before in this place that we see education as a highway where you can start with early childhood and you can go through schools, you can go into vocational education and you can go into higher education. We will continue to strongly support education in this country to make sure that everyone has the opportunity for a quality education.

When we talk about education, one of the things that we must be mindful of at all times is ensuring that the education that we are providing to our young people, not just at school but through vocational education and in higher education, is of a high quality and that those coming through higher education or vocational education are, in fact, job ready and have the skills that industry is crying out for. This is what this government stands for: high-quality education at universities, at schools, in vocational training and in our early childhood centres. So what we will do is continue to take up the fight to make sure that our children in Australia have the opportunity for an ongoing high-quality education.

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