Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

BRIAN MITCHELL () (): I'm proud to speak today on the Jobs and Skills Australia Amendment Bill 2023. Australia is facing a skills shortage across many of our critical industries. These shortages have been neglected for nine long years of failed Liberal government. For nearly a decade the Liberal National government cut TAFE and slashed apprenticeships. Today we have 85,000 fewer apprenticeships and traineeships compared to 2013 when the Liberal National government came to power. So despite nine years of largely economic growth and population growth—apart from that small blip of recession during the pandemic—we've got fewer people in apprenticeships and traineeships than nine years ago, a scandalous arrangement that this government is committed to addressing.

That neglect has come to an end with this government. Employers, frankly, have been finding it very difficult to find qualified staff in key areas, including health care, child care and aged care. Nursing and personal care professionals are amongst the hardest working people to find in this nationwide skills shortage. These are critical industries and yet we can't find the workers. Hopefully we'll address some of that with the aged-care worker wage rise that we've just passed through the budget, but time will tell.

A core business of this government is to create more opportunities for all Australians to prosper. This government will ensure more skilled and secure job opportunities for all Australians regardless of where they live. At the 2022 federal election the Prime Minister and Labor told the people of Australia that we would tackle the skills crisis in Australia head-on. We promised we would get straight to work on fixing the issue with no broken promises, no spin and no deflection from the issues at hand. Today we continue to make good on that promise to the people of Australia and we take important steps into ending the skills crisis across the country.

Jobs and Skills Australia is an independent advisory body that will provide advice on the labour market to government, ensuring the skill shortage mess we were left by the previous government does not happen again. This bill before the House gives effect to the Australian government's commitment to finalise the establishment of Jobs and Skills Australia as a statutory body to be established and funded as announced in the 2022-23 October budget, and the amendment ensures that representation across the board is underpinned by expertise. We are serious about fixing the skills crisis, and this bill helps us achieve it. Jobs and Skills Australia will operate as a truly tripartite organisation with unions, employers and state and territory governments brought in as partners, informing and resolving the skills and labour market crisis that we are facing and the need to build the workforce we need for Australia's future.

Jobs and Skills Australia will also conduct a national study on adult literacy, numeracy and digital literacy skills to provide an up-to-date evidence base on levels of these foundation skills among Australian adults. This will be the most comprehensive study ever undertaken in Australia. The results will help us successfully design future programs and policies, ensuring we have a skilled Australian workforce. We know that recent employment growth has been in areas that require a post-school higher education qualification. It's never been more critical to have post-school qualifications. It should be a right for everyone, from every background, to have the opportunity to study at a higher level, whether they're rich or poor, in the city or in the regions.

The Albanese government has taken action on these issues in the October 2022-23 budget. We budgeted $6.3 billion for vocational education training in the 2022-23 financial year. Last night we continued and added even more. We are delivering on our promise to upskill Australia and tackle the skills shortages, and we are committed to doing this right across Australia for all Australians. It's good for young people who want to get into a trade and it's good for the economy. Fee-free TAFE is focused on addressing the skills shortages that we face today. These courses are leading to jobs that are needed most by employers in Australia right now. To provide greater opportunity for Australians to have secure and rewarding employment, we must be able to skill and reskill our workforce effectively. For many people, course fees are a barrier to getting into training and work. Fee-free TAFE removes that barrier. Of the 3,800 additional fee-free TAFE places for Tasmania for 2023, we've seen now 2,200 enrolments in a very short space of time. It's a policy that's working. It's providing the skills that are needed in Tasmania for Tasmanians, providing the businesses and sectors of our economy the skills that they are crying out for. That's good for our economy, good for students and good for businesses. Reducing cost-of-living pressures and ensuring no-one is left behind is a key element of the Albanese government's plan and central to our fee-free TAFE and VET initiative.

The Australian government understands that people living in regional, rural and remote areas face unique challenges. This bill will ensure Jobs and Skills Australia produces enhanced regional-level data and analysis of skills and workforce needs, to provide a greater understanding of jurisdictional differences, such as changing economic conditions or emerging industries.

Australia has the second highest labour supply shortages across all OECD countries, with three million Australians currently lacking the fundamental skills required to participate in training and secure work. It's a shameful legacy of the former government, which we must contend with. I know this is the case in Tasmania and in my own electorate. We don't have enough skilled workers. It's affecting our productivity and the ability of our people to find secure and meaningful employment.

Tasmania's skill shortage was ignored by the previous government. Remote and rural workers nationally wanting to upskill or re-skill were ignored by them. Our youth were left high and dry with fewer prospects while the Liberals and Nationals were in government. Under the Albanese government this is about to change. Jobs and Skills Australia will help our regions to thrive and will give our workforce a much needed and long overdue skills boost. Under our government, future skill shortages will be addressed as they arise and with time to spare. This government won't be caught chasing its tail, and it will ensure that skills shortages are identified and dealt with.

I'm genuinely excited for the future of jobs and skills in Tasmania and for the people of Tasmania. As part of the October budget, Sorell, in my electorate, will receive $1.5 million to fund an upgraded jobs hub. I recently welcomed the minister for skills to my electorate to visit the site, which will soon be underway, and to speak to the team of Business and Employment Southeast Tasmania to discuss the amazing benefits this jobs hub will bring to the people of Sorell and the wider region. This jobs hub will combat the severe skills shortage we are facing in the south-east of Tasmania, a fast-growing area, and will ensure good training and secure employment for the people of Sorell and surrounds. The Sorell BEST Jobs Hub will offer practical trade skills to high school students and school leavers as well as adults, ensuring that those who are ending their school journey won't be left high and dry without the necessary skills to gain secure employment. This new jobs hub will ensure demand is met and all young people in the area get the opportunity to upskill and prepare for their future.

Young people living in rural and regional areas in Tasmania and, indeed, across Australia deserve the same opportunities as those living in our cities. They deserve access to services which will benefit their future without having to travel great distances for it. That's what the jobs hub will achieve, and that's what this government is delivering for the people of Lyons and the people of Australia. Kids in the regions need to have the opportunity to access these services in places like Sorell. The Albanese government is making that happen. With the establishment of Jobs and Skills Australia, we will see patterns in skill shortages evolving, enabling us to take action and not be left in the sorry mess that we inherited.

While with the Minister for Skills and Training, I had the great pleasure of visiting the Clarence TAFE campus—which is just across the border from my electorate in the electorate of Franklin, represented by my good friend the Minister for Housing and Minister for Small Business—where we met some students studying aged care. They were in the last four weeks of their, I think, six-month course. There were about 20 of them, and nearly every one of them has got a job to go to. We've got some critical shortages in the aged-care industry, and nearly every one of them has got a job to go to. The TAFE is doing a really terrific job of skilling them up for that job, and we saw them being put through their paces. We were talking to some of those students. Most of them are doing that course because it's fee free. Of course, aged care is an area of critical skills shortage. Most of them were women, but there were a couple of fellas. There was one older woman who said that she'd never dreamed that she'd be back in the workforce and that fee-free TAFE had allowed her the opportunity to get back and get that qualification. She's really looking forward to becoming an aged-care worker and filling a very critical role. That is the difference that we can make.

In conclusion, Jobs and Skills Australia will support a strong, skilled Australian workforce and will provide the necessary prompts when existing and emerging skills are more in demand. It will provide the foundations necessary to enable federal, state and territory governments, unions and employers to make decisions to invest in education and training appropriate to our needs and to improve skill development and employment opportunities for our workforce that will, in hand, aid our economic growth. It puts a figure, a percentage or a statistic on basic as well as advanced skills traits, looking not only at how we can advance our future workforce but at how we can upskill our current one.

A higher skilled workforce is a productive one; they're better paid and they have better job security. It's part of the foundations that the Labor Party was built on, and Jobs and Skills Australia is one of the building blocks necessary to ensure that our workers have the tools they need for the future. The Albanese Labor government is striving to ensure a future Australia has a skilled, secure, well-paid and happy workforce. That's a better future for this country indeed. I commented the bill to the House.

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