Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm more than happy to disagree to the amendment put by the members opposite. Listening to the comments made by the member for Fraser just then and by others in this House today around these issues, I note with particular interest the discussion of the lack of skills, training and support to business. I'd like to remind those opposite that over the last little while there have been 50 per cent wage subsidies, there's been funding for 100,000 new apprentices and trainees, and there have been up to 450,000 JobTrainer places for school leavers and jobseekers to upskill.

We regularly hear in this place about the lack of skills and training or the lack of apprentices and opportunities. Well, I can say quite safely, from my experiences in the past seven or eight weeks as I have been out in my electorate talking to businesspeople and engaging with the community, that they are concerned about the lack of skills and training. But what they're more worried about is the fact that, when they talk to the schools, the focus of the schools is still on sending students to university, and that the success of the school is measured by the number of students who go to university. They don't take into account the value and the importance of the number of students who seek to take on a trade or a vocation and a profession in that space. I think that's emblematic of many of the issues that we're discussing.

For the past 20 or 30 years the whole discussion has been about sending kids to university, because if you get a degree you've got your future made. I say to this House and to those outside of here: if you get a trade or get an apprenticeship then your future is made. As I look around my electorate of Forde, manufacturing industries are screaming out for welders and engineers, and infrastructure projects need myriad workers. We're now seeing hold-ups in infrastructure projects because of a lack of those employees. When I look at the building industry I see the plumbers, electricians, carpenters, bricklayers and ceramic tilers who are required. Those discussions are either not or very rarely being had with the students at school today. They may be being had with the students who they think are 'non-academic', but there are plenty of kids who are academically gifted at school but who don't turn out to be so at university. There's not a fulsome and wholesome discussion with our kids at school about the opportunities that are there for them in the future with a vocation or trade.

I'm very proud of the fact that largely my electorate is built on people who have skills and who are working in manufacturing, in construction and in trades of all sorts, because they are the people who build this country. We get to stand in this place because of carpenters, electricians, stonemasons, concreters and bricklayers. If we don't have those people then we don't have buildings like this, we don't have our houses, we don't have our roads and we don't have our bridges. So we need to change that discussion to realise and to educate our children that the option of pursuing a trade or a vocation is as valuable and as important to this country as becoming a doctor, a nurse, a teacher or—heaven forbid!—a lawyer. We need to have that discussion and refocus on what's important for this country.

I've also heard the comment today about employees in various sectors of the economy being employed through labour hire firms and potentially getting less pay than somebody who is paid on a direct basis. Well, it's interesting: when you reflect on what those sectors are—and predominantly those sectors are highly unionised sectors—the question for those opposite is, what are their union representatives doing to ensure that those conditions don't arise? From talking to the businesses in my electorate over the past eight weeks I can say that they want people on full-time pay; they're not interested in employing people through labour hire companies. These are the small-to-medium businesses in my electorate who want to employ people on a direct basis and keep them there for the long term if they're up to scratch. That being said, one business said to me the other week that some of their employees have just enjoyed a very significant pay rise. That was to ensure that the business keeps those very valuable employees, that they don't go off and work somewhere else.

As usual, what we hear from those on the other side is a lot of myth and innuendo that actually, when you get out and engage with the business community in the real world, doesn't hold any validity or any water. As I've said many times in this place, don't listen to what those opposite say but have a look at what they do. This government is very focused on ensuring that we have the necessary workforce for the future. I talked to local businesses that have production lines, and when you talk about electricians today, these are not the ordinary, everyday electricians; these are very, very skilled tradespeople who can do electronics, who can repair electrical circuits that are very intricate and who can service multimillion-dollar machines. These are highly skilled, highly trained employees who bring enormous wealth and opportunity to this country.

More importantly, with regard to schedule 1 of this bill, which is the reporting of the sharing economy regime, this has been something that has been done in the past. The building industry has been required, and still is required, to report annually its range of payments to subcontractors to ensure that taxes are paid, that GST is paid and all those sorts of things. So, this change to the tax administration is a worthwhile and important change. We've seen the value of that in the building industry. I remember talking with the building industry when those changes were introduced about how many of the builders had to work with their subcontractors to make sure they had the systems in place to properly manage their GST requirements and their tax affairs. In fairness to them, a lot of the subbies were somewhat lax in their bookkeeping and other arrangements. I would say that these measures are critically important because what they do is more accurately show what is actually going on in this sector of the economy, as occurred with the building industry when those changes were introduced. They will ensure that everybody in this economy is paying the proper amount of tax, or the tax that they are due to pay, and enable us to lower the tax burden as a whole across our economy.

Schedule 2 of the bill focuses on some transitional provisions relating to the repeal of the Superannuation (Resolution of Complaints) Act. This is as a result of the setting up of AFCA to replace the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal, and the transfer of the remaining cases, of which there were six, to AFCA. With this change, which combines all these complaints bodies into a single complaints body, AFCA, we've seen a much smoother transition and administration of complaints. I note that AFCA has been working assiduously in dealing with complaints as they're brought forward. With these systems there are always different views on how things can be improved, and I'm looking forward, down the track when we do a review of AFCA, to see how we can further fine-tune those systems and processes. Overall, I think the combination of these various complaints bodies by this government in 2017-18 has been a great success.

The last bit is schedule 3, which removes the $250 limit for prescribed educational expenses. Whilst a small measure in the context of the overall tax act, it's just another example of finding small opportunities to improve the operation of the tax system and make it more efficient. Equally, it builds on the range of initiatives that this government has made over the years to streamline the tax system and reduce the tax burden on everyday hardworking Australians through the tax plans we've put in until 2025, which will mean approximately 90 per cent of people will pay no more than 30-odd cents in the dollar in tax.

In conjunction with myriad other economic supports that we've put in place over the past 18 months, it just shows how much time and effort this government, we on this side, is putting in to ensure that we support the Australian economy through this COVID crisis. I acknowledge that this bill is not directly related to that, but it's an example of the government continuing to look for opportunities to simplify and streamline systems and processes, no matter how small they are. As the old saying goes, if we look after the pennies, the pounds will follow. It's no different with these things. Where we can find small wins that make the system more efficient and better for everyone involved, everybody benefits.

Likewise, with the stuff we're doing with apprenticeships and traineeships, I encourage people to take the opportunity to engage with their local businesses. I've encouraged my local businesses to engage with their local schools because many of the schools actually don't understand the apprenticeships, traineeships or other job opportunities that are out there. There's also an obligation on the business community to do a better job of engaging with the school community to identify these opportunities. I commend the bill, in its unamended form, to the House.

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