Daniel Mulino (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

When I first saw this motion, I thought to myself: with only five minutes, it's going to be very difficult to speak to a motion that is fairly difficult to keep within one page in nine point given how many sub-parts it has. It's a motion with three parts, and part 2 has nine sub-parts. One would think we are living through a golden era of reform when it comes to vocational education and training—there is so much that this government has to fit on one page to spell out its achievements. But this motion, more than anything else, is a classic case of 'spin over reality'. Vocational education and training is more important than ever given the challenges our economy is facing and the huge transition our economy is going through.

Young people today are going to face more careers than ever, and they're going to face the need for lifelong training in a way that earlier generations did not. What we see, however, is that vocational education and training is being gutted. The irony of this motion is that it refers to a program that, in the last budget, had its funding topped up, and this government will now continue to pat itself on the back; it cites $525 million of funding in the last budget when in fact only $70 million of that was new money. We have a government that should be placing a greater emphasis on vocational education and training; rather, it is cutting funding and spinning the existing programs that it has.

Let's look at the facts. The Australian Industry Group, an independent observer of the state of the economy in this space, says 75 per cent of businesses report that they are struggling to find the qualified workers they need. This is a parlour situation. This is a disaster for young people, who should be connected to jobs that are in existence. What that says is that there are jobs out there but young people are not being connected to them. It's a huge lost opportunity. That is not the fault of the young people; that is the fault of a training and education system that is not connecting them to existing opportunities.

We also have an economy in which two million people are underutilised. We know that the underemployment rate has been rising throughout the term of this government. It is now at over eight per cent; it is over 10 per cent in many areas. In fact, when one looks at under-utilisation—those who are unemployed and those who are underemployed—in some regional areas it is approaching 20 per cent, or one in five. This is a disaster for many people in these areas in terms of their capacity to earn a living and have a financially secure future.

What have we seen from this government? Let's look at the big picture. It's not about this government adding $70 million as a small top-up to a scheme in the last budget. Let's look in a holistic way at this government's commitment to vocational education and training. This government has cut around $3 billion from TAFE since it took office. So let's not look at one program, let's not cherry pick and let's not misrepresent through the funding allocated to one specific program. Overall, when it comes to this government, TAFE has had its investments slashed. And not only has TAFE had its investment slashed in budgets; this government doesn't even have the confidence to spend the money it has allocated. A total of $5.27 billion was budgeted for a series of apprenticeship skills and training initiatives between the 2014-15 and 2018-19 budgets but this government spent only $4.35 billion of that. That is almost $1 billion in underspends. The government will come in here and explain that 'it was so difficult, this or that was unforeseen, it's the fault of a demand driven system'. They'll always try and blame those on the other end. But we should be holding this government to account for the fact that, on its own budgeted investments, it has failed to spend almost 20 per cent of the money it has allocated.

As I've indicated, our economy is going through a transition. Young people today will need to be given skills to face a workplace in the future that we can't even envisage. This is a huge challenge and our VET system needs investments at much higher levels than this government has budgeted for. And not only that; this VET system needs money actually spent where it is budgeted for, rather than having $1 billion sitting on the table. This motion is a classic case of this government being far more about spin than reality. When you look at the VET system, it doesn't warrant a motion that takes more than five minutes to read out; it warrants real investment in budgets that reaches the kids that need training to fill the jobs they're not able to fill at the moment.

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