Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in favour of the Jobs and Skills Australia Amendment Bill 2023. Our government took office at a time of rising inflation and interest rates, falling real wages and nearly $1 trillion of coalition earned debt, which is now more expensive to service. Ten years of Liberal inaction have left our economy rudderless. There was no certainty on the future of the low-carbon economy and no signals for businesses on carbon accounting, and there were cuts to and neglect of our higher education and training sectors. The truth of the matter is that they just weren't up to the job. I would like to quote the former member for Chisholm, Julia Banks:

When I had a seat in the Liberal party room, I'd regularly feign tolerance over the ignorance of some of the so-called political leaders of Dutton and Morrison's ilk. Whether the debate was about climate change, marriage equality or business and the economy, I would often reflect that many of them wouldn't survive two weeks in a good corporation.

I have spent the majority of my working life in the private sector. I have worked with some of Western Australia's biggest companies on the ASX 200. Businesses want certainty from government to help with investment decisions. Businesses respond to the cues of government and they seek a vision that they can play a part in. This is what the Albanese Labor government has done. In our first four months in office we hosted our Jobs and Skills Consultative Forum and the Jobs and Skills Summit. Our Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, wants to lead a country that brings people together and does not divide the country, like the coalition did. The Albanese Labor government brought together Australians, including unions, employers, businesses, civil society and governments, to discuss our shared economic future and talk about how we can build a better future and address the challenges. When you have diverse characters, such as Andrew Forrest and Sally McManus, in the room talking about the future of the economy, it sends a clear signal that business, governments and unions are seriously talking about moving in the same direction. We hosted the forum to listen genuinely and to act.

In my electorate of Swan I hosted a jobs and skills forum in November. My forum brought together 60 attendees from businesses, community groups and local government. One attendee, John Kennedy from JFK Custom Homes in Belmont Avenue in Rivervale, spoke about the need for a solid pipeline of trainees and apprentices. He said that he'd like to see better coordination between TAFE, government and industry to ensure that we're planning for our workforce needs. Our goal was, and still remains, to build a bigger and better trained, more productive workforce; to boost incomes and living standards; and to create more opportunities for Australians to get ahead and reach their aspirations. That kind of vision for our economy offers the stability necessary for businesses to succeed and for Australian workers to benefit.

The Jobs and Skills Australia Amendment Bill creates an economy-wide perspective on labour market matters. It considers the contribution of vocational education and training, higher education and migration to meet Australia's skills and workforce challenges. It's the kind of planning and coordination that business people like John from Belmont Avenue are asking for. It should come as no surprise that business is calling out for better coordination of labour market matters. Australia has the second-highest labour market supply shortages across all OECD countries, and this is why we've brought this matter before the parliament. I know this is something that's welcomed by the people in my electorate.

This stage is the second stage of a two-stage process, which was made clear with the introduction and the passage of the Jobs and Skills Australia Bill 2022 in November 2022, which established Jobs and Skills Australia as an independent agency and gave it interim functions. To ensure that stakeholders' views were considered in the design of the permanent Jobs and Skills Australia agency, and to support government's commitment to tripartisanship, the legislation has been introduced in two phases. We're now introducing the amendment bill to establish the ongoing governance structure and functions of Jobs and Skills Australia. We're working with all parts of the economy because we want to get this right. This is an ongoing process too, and I want to acknowledge the importance of our proposed amendments to bring in a small business representative to Jobs and Skills Australia. In my electorate 96 per cent of businesses are small businesses, so it's crucial for my community that small business is a significant player at the table in Jobs and Skills Australia.

In December last year the recruitment difficulty rate was sitting at 65 per cent. This means that 65 per cent of recruiting employers reported experiencing difficulty hiring staff. In the most recent recruitment round the construction industry reported the highest recruitment difficulty, sitting at 80 per cent for the December 2022 quarter. I don't want to see businesses, especially small businesses, having to turn work away because finding appropriate staff is too difficult. I find it shocking that businesses are going through this level of hardship right now and that the opposition, who sat on their hands for the last 10 years, had no plan for better coordination of our labour markets and are going to vote this bill down if the government doesn't support their amendment. This amendment that the opposition is talking about is about union representation being on the board of Jobs and Skills Australia—or, as they would prefer, not to have that representation. What I'd say is that all systems need balance, and knowing what workers think up-front is critical.

I've worked in the private sector and I am proud of what the WA resources sector has contributed to the national economy. I've been a boss in a medium-size business; I'm also a unionist. One of the things that I learned when I was at Curtin University and was elected to be the Curtin Student Guild president, was the power that came when the bosses—which was Curtin University at the time—and the guild worked together to create a better future. I was very fortunate to have Lance Twomey, who was the vice-chancellor, agree on what our shared vision was and we worked together. It's amazing the synergies that can be achieved when you actually work together.

The truth is that not voting for this bill is a slap in the face for small businesses. Indeed, the next time I speak to business owners who are struggling to find suitable staff, like John from Belmont Avenue, I will say that those opposite were not prepared to support this bill. It's also a slap in the face of workers. This bill empowers Jobs and Skills Australia to undertake studies, including opportunities to improve employment, VET and higher education outcomes for cohorts of individuals that have historically experienced labour market disadvantage and exclusion, such as women, people over the age of 55, people with a disability, youth, unpaid carers and First Nations Australians.

When we had the Jobs and Skills Summit in September one of the immediate actions of this government was to create flexible parental arrangements so that parents and carers can split leave between them. We've increased the childcare subsidy to reduce the cost for families seeking to return to work. In my electorate of Swan 6,900 families are set to benefit from this policy, meaning less pressure on the hip pocket and more people back in the workforce.

I'd also like to mention that it's typically mothers who make the decision to leave their job—forgoing income, superannuation and career experience. It is a factor that is at the core of the persistent gender pay gap in this country. By creating an agency that looks into ways to improve groups who are typically disadvantaged or excluded we are setting in motion the first steps of building practical measures to empower people, whether that is the gender pay gap, retaining over-55s in the workforce, providing meaningful and dignified work for people who experience disability, or bridging the employment and income gap between First Nations Australians and other Australians.

I was so proud last year when Dylan Alcott was named Australian of the Year. He is a fierce advocate for those with a disability and wants to see them empowered and in employment. In my home in Swan there is a business owner called Sarah Yates. She owns a cafe called Our Ruby Girl in South Perth. One thing she does is engage and retain people with a disability in the workforce. I met her at the jobs and skills forum that I had in my community and she spoke to me about how they bring in two high-school-age work experience students each semester. They tailor the working conditions to suit the needs of the person, such as shorter hours or finding tasks that best match their skills. She's actually a trained psychologist. She saw a gap in this area, so she ended up starting a cafe and making sure that these people have access to work. The thing that's fascinating about Our Ruby Girl is that 50 per cent of their employees experience disability. By having an agency that can investigate best practice and share knowledge Australia wide it is my hope that we can lift the workforce participation rate of people who experience disability. I cannot understand why the Liberals would want to stand in the way of this.

This bill also assigns to Jobs and Skills Australia the function of identifying labour market imbalances and analysis of the role played by the demand and supply of skills. In my electorate of Swan the resource sector is a massive employer. I, like many Western Australians, pursued a career in that sector. I studied at university for a minimum of five years to get my two degrees and then was lucky to find a job. Unfortunately, that's not the story for many graduates who are studying in a field relevant to the resources sector. When the times are good and the sector is booming, the resources sector looks like a very attractive place to work and there's great demand for skills. What often happens is that high school students and mature age students looking for a career change go and seek qualifications and sometimes, depending on commodity prices, there are no jobs available. The boom-bust cycle can be brutal.

When the times are good, mining companies spend lots of money on exploration, but when the commodity prices tank the geologists are often the first to lose their jobs. One of my classmates—a female chemical engineer—experienced three redundancies. After her third redundancy she said: 'Zaneta, I'm sick of working in this sector. I'm going to go work in aged care because I know that that has consistent demand.'

So the thing that I'd say is: I do want people to look at different parts of the economy and recognise that they can have careers in those, but we need to be smarter about the way that we match skills with the actual jobs. Getting the balance right and having forward planning for the skills we need will mean that workers will be better informed when they head into their studies as to what jobs lie ahead and will move quickly into the workforce after training. It's a win for workers and it's a win for business.

Yesterday's budget saw an additional $400 million allocated to deliver an additional 300,000 fee-free TAFE and VET places, and that's building on the 180,000 places that we already have committed to creating, by increasing funding by an additional $54 million to critical Australian apprenticeship supports to improve completion rates, including 4,630 apprentices currently training in Swan. We've put in $8.6 million to deliver the Australian Skills Guarantee and introduced national targets for apprentices, trainees and paid cadets working on Australian-government-funded major infrastructure projects, making sure that we're building a pipeline of skilled tradespeople and ensuring that we maximise that. In our last budget, we announced 10,000 new energy apprenticeships to train Australians in the new energy jobs of the future and provide additional supports so they complete training that they need. This will be facilitated by programs like new energy skills programs, developing fit-for-purpose training for new energy industry jobs, in partnership with states and territories, industry and unions.

I think that one of the things that they have in scientific principles are synergies, where they talk about waves and the superpositioning of waves and you can either have constructive or destructive interference. The thing that I see with Jobs and Skills Australia is that this is an opportunity to harmonise the different parts of our economy, hear the views of unions, workers, businesses and education providers, and build on a better future for Australia. We've had 10 years of Liberal inaction, and they have left our economy rudderless. The thing that I'm looking forward to is a better future within Australia.

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