Terry Young (Longman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's my pleasure to rise, today, to speak on jobs and skills. This topic, jobs and skills, has always been one of my greatest passions. The reason I am so passionate about these subjects is that, rightly or wrongly, people derive their self-worth from what they do, so when they do nothing they feel like they are worth nothing and they act accordingly. People getting into jobs not only changes their life, it changes the life of their entire community. The data tells us that when unemployment rates go down, so do crime rates, drug use rates and domestic violence rates. When people get a job that they love, that's a whole other level.

I was pleased to see that this government was going to attempt to maintain the momentum created by the last coalition government in the jobs and training sectors. We saw the lowest unemployment rate in half a century obtained recently, and the benefit from the last government's policies and management will continue, I will say, until the middle of next year. This is when the fruits, healthy or rotten, of the new government will be tasted. I am pleased that this government has announced it will continue the 15,000 new places for aged-care training that the coalition announced in its last term, although I am concerned that they have announced that all funding will go to public providers only. The reason this concerns me is that private RTOs have been providing 70 to 80 per cent of training across our VET sector, and according to Independent Tertiary Education Council Australia, or ITECA, 79 per cent of women are trained through private RTOs. I am absolutely for TAFE, but I am also a big fan of private RTOs.

Competition is crucial in any industry, including the VET sector. People need options and flexibility when selecting who they do their training with. Whether their challenge be geographical or flexibility with time, due to family or work commitments, they simply need more than nine to five, Monday to Friday providers. I would love to go a step further and see funding for all RTOs, private and public, tied to outcomes. Sadly, I know that is just a pipe dream. There is also an indication that this government may cut skills funding for apprentices. The last time Labor did this the number of people in training fell by 111,000 between June 2012 and June 2013. We simply cannot afford for this to happen again. When speaking with employers, apprentices and group training organisations, they tell me the coalition's apprentice wage subsidy program was a godsend. It encouraged employers who wouldn't normally have put on an apprentice, to give one a go. This was great news for everyone, and especially for those in such sectors as the residential building sector, where there is a massive shortage of tradies. This scheme resulted in record numbers of apprentices, and for the first time in our nation's history we hit over 220,000 apprentices. It would be a great pity if the scheme was not continued. It was also great to see under the coalition in the last term that women's employment rose by 41,000 and that we were able to reduce the gender pay gap by four percentage points from when we took over government from Labor in 2013. The NSC, or National Skills Commission, was another jewel in the coalition government's crown, with the organisation identifying where skills shortages actually were. After all, what is the point of training people for jobs that don't exist?

When I'm visiting businesses in my electorate of Longman, the No. 1 complaint I get from employers is that they simply cannot get workers to fill available jobs. Then I speak to constituents who are unemployed, and they say they can't get a job. I was puzzled by this, so my team and I decided to run a jobseeker expo. We invited jobactive providers, group-training organisations and disability employment services, as well as employers who had actual jobs going on the day. I'm so pleased to say that I was out at one of those employers, Rockpool aged care, for their residents' art exhibition, and they excitedly shared with me that they had employed three people who attended the expo. That's three lives changed and an employer that is able to continue to offer its elderly residents the standard of care and service they deserve.

While we had this skills shortage, the coalition just before the last election developed a policy to double the income credit for age pensioners from $7,800 to $15,600 to engage those in our community who have retired and would still be willing to work but don't want to lose their pension. This government has increased the threshold to $11,800, which is a start, although short of our policy of doubling it. I sincerely hope that any new initiatives and programs developed and implemented by this government achieve outcomes that we as a society all crave—that is, lower unemployment and workers obtaining the skills they need to develop their dream career.

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