Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Skills and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the minister for his contribution. It was an absolute pleasure to join him this morning at the National Skills Week breakfast. The room was at capacity and shows the depth of support that the sector has.

There are so many similarities that government and opposition have in their appetite for developing our country through vocational skills and training. We will be the first to support government when it is doing well, but it is incumbent upon us as opposition to work constructively with government and highlight areas we believe need further reflection.

Here is a small insight into my own family. Minister, in your contribution you mentioned a number of people you had run across in your portfolio brief. When I sit down at my kitchen table, Christine and I have five children. It's a blended family. Our eldest daughter has followed a tertiary education, completing her post graduate work., Last week, Elizabeth completed her capstone for female apprenticeship and works on the Gold Coast. It was a very proud moment for her and for us. We've got two trade qualified children and two qualified through the tertiary system. We have conversations, at our table, about what HECS debts look like. I think the government knows that from the opposition's perspective we are very supportive of the vocational and training sector. When we speak about building a stronger economy and a more resilient nation and creating real opportunities for Australians, it all comes back to one thing. It comes back to the Australian people and how we communicate with our kids. Our people are our greatest resource, and ensuring Australians have the right skills, the right training and the right opportunities is absolutely vital to our shared prosperity and national productivity.

National Skills Week is not simply about celebrating vocational education and training. It's looking to identify future requirements, future needs, particularly in my state of Queensland, where the pipeline of construction as we enter into a sense of readiness for the Olympic Games is even more paramount. We need to be training the people today to build those future projects. It's about highlighting the real value of apprenticeships, traineeships and skills development and bringing them to individual businesses and communities right across the country, because, when we invest in skills, we invest in Australians. We create real jobs, careers and futures. Importantly, we give businesses, from small family operations through to major multinationals, the workforce they need to keep moving, innovating and competing in the global market.

As shadow minister for skills and training I've had the privilege of travelling across this great country and hearing directly from businesses, industry groups and training providers. No matter where I go, the message is very similar. They're crying out for skilled workers. That's across every sector. It's the finance sector, the resources sector, the agricultural sector, the transport sector, the civil sector and the tourism sector. They are all looking for skilled workers. On a recent visit to Bundaberg with my colleague the member for Hinkler—wasn't that a good trip?—I saw firsthand the challenges that local businesses in regional Australia are facing. These are businesses that are the lifeblood of their communities. They're at the front line of the skills shortage and unable to find the apprentices and trained workers they need. It is in regional Australia where the skills crisis is most acute. But, most of all, it's hurting us.

It's here that you can see so clearly the importance of getting the policy right, because, when businesses in Bundaberg, Western Sydney or outer Melbourne cannot put on an apprentice, the impact is not just economic; it becomes social. It means fewer people in the workforce, fewer opportunities for families and slower growth for Australians. This is why National Skills Week matters, and I'm proud to be associated with it. It reminds us that skills are not just abstract policy issues. They're about real people, real jobs and real futures. They're about giving young Australians trades that set them up for life. They're about reskilling workers who want to adapt and succeed. They're about ensuring that industries have the confidence to grow because they know the workforce is there to back them. However, the truth is that we're not where we'd like to be as a country. Australian businesses are struggling, Australian industries are falling behind and too many Australians are missing out on opportunities that should be there.

That brings me to the reality of where we are today. The skills crisis didn't happen overnight, but it's worsened in recent years. More than one in three occupations, 36 per cent, are assessed as being in national shortage. Since the coalition left office, there have been100,000 fewer apprenticeships in training. That means fewer Australians on the pathway to skilled, secure employment and fewer businesses able to find the workers that they need.

Now, the government has put forward fee-free TAFE as an answer. On the surface it sounds attractive, but the reality is that it's more complicated. Too often the courses are short, low level or not aligned with the skills our economy desperately needs in construction, energy and care. They are training for training's sake and not for jobs' sake. We all want integrity in training; we all want that. But taxpayers deserve to know that the billions of dollars being spent are delivering outcomes: real apprentices, real completions and real jobs. Unfortunately, we're seeing billions invested without tackling the apprenticeships crisis head-on. MEGT, the country's largest apprenticeship provider network, revealed earlier this month:

As a share of the working age population, commencements are at their lowest point on record.

That clearly tells us the current approach is not working.

We're keen to work with the government to find solutions. Instead of targeting solutions to boost productivity and meet industry demand, too much focus is being placed on headline numbers and political spin. Instead of them supporting quality providers and cutting red tape, we will see uncertainty and dodgy operators undermine confidence in the system. Free TAFE has become a bandaid. I spoke with a guy at the table at that breakfast this morning, and he said, 'If you go back and have a look at the budget papers and the completion rates at TAFE, it's just over $60,000 of completion per student.' I'm happy to have the conversation offline with the minister about how we can get greater value for money.

It's a costly, poorly targeted, bandaid approach, which is ultimately failing to solve the shortages that matter most to Australians. The National Centre for Vocational Education Research, the pre-eminent body that does the research, released data just yesterday that said there are 32,000 fewer students studying in government funded schools in 2024 than there were in 2023. Labor's $1.5 billion fee-free TAFE project has delivered a completion rate, to date, of just 26 per cent. While government talks about partnerships, too often the partnerships put the interests of unions ahead of those of small businesses, employees and apprentices, who are actually on the ground, making it happen. The result is a system that looks good in press releases but doesn't deliver the pipeline of skilled workers that we desperately need for our nation.

Australians are paying the price of the ongoing skills shortage, with slower productivity and a higher cost of living, and industries struggle to keep up. That's why the coalition will continue to stand for real apprentices, real jobs and real training. Participation rates in Australian government funded training are down across the board since we were in office, but especially in the 15- to 24-year-old bracket. We will focus on those young people; we will focus on policies that deliver lasting results. We will focus on giving Australians the skills to succeed and giving businesses the confidence to grow, because, if we're serious about building the homes that Australia needs, powering the nation into the future and caring for our ageing population, then we must be serious about the skills. That means focusing not on slogans or spin but on the hard, practical work and on training a workforce that is fit for purpose.

National Skills Week reminds us of what our task is. It reminds us to have an interest in people and it's about investing in Australia's future. It reminds us that the task before us is urgent—to ensure that there is no business held back for want of a skilled workforce and that no Australian misses out on chances to build a strong, secure career.

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