Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Skills and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I want to begin my remarks by recognising the Ngunnawal peoples as traditional custodians of the land on which we gather today. I'd also like to recognise the Wurundjeri people, traditional custodians of the land that I'm so proud to represent in the electorate of Scullin. I want to recognise more than 65,000 years of continuous culture and connection to country right around this beautiful country.

Last week I had the enormous privilege of attending the National Indigenous Training Academy graduation ceremony. The ceremony, at the Uluru meeting place, celebrated 23 new graduates. It's at Uluru that practical skills being used in the tourism sector are being aligned with generations-old skills of storytelling and connection. These graduates are walking in two worlds, connecting culture and country with skills that open doors everywhere. The graduates in the hospitality and service industries have benefitted from on-the-job training across a range of services. In many cases they stepped from their graduation straight into full-time employment.

The National Indigenous Training Academy is also a great example of the quality and diversity of Australia's VET sector. NITA has developed, from the ground up, a cert III course in tourism focused on tour guiding. This course, developed from Indigenous experience and understanding, caters to the needs of the tourism sector in Uluru, as I saw, and also in Mossman Gorge. This is work that takes time, but that time has been invested to deliver a course that's of high quality and in high demand.

NITA caters to First Nations people from all across Australia, aged between 18 and 30, who are seeking a career in hospitality and tourism. As of last Friday, 797 graduates had achieved a cert III under one of the programs. Many are now directly employed at the Ayers Rock Resort and the Mossman Gorge Cultural Centre. Many of them have learned their skills from trainers who are NITA graduates themselves—they gained their qualification, went out into the world to gain industry experience and came back with their training and assessment qualification to play their part in skilling the next generation.

I echo the Prime Minister's words by saying that the 2026 Closing the Gap implementation plan demonstrates that our government is determined to focus on areas where we can have the greatest impact, providing jobs and economic opportunities, access to essential services, community safety and, of course, long-term wellbeing. As Minister for Skills and Training, I'm very proud to be part of this work.

A major part of our reform in this regard is the National Skills Agreement. The NSA, which we signed with every state and territory government, embeds Closing the Gap as a national priority—the first national agreement to do so. VET plays a key role in advancing outcomes 5, 6 and 7 of the Closing the Gap agreement. Outcome 5 is concerned with increasing the proportion of First Nations people aged 20 to 24 years who have attained a year 12 certificate or equivalent, a cert III or above. Outcome 6 seeks to increase the proportion of First Nations people who have completed a tertiary qualification. Outcome 7 is about increasing the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth who are in employment, education and training to 67 per cent.

In partnership with states and territories and, of course, the Coalition of Peaks, the Commonwealth is establishing and managing a nationally networked VET policy partnership to ensure active engagement with First Nations people, organisations and communities. It will support organisations and affiliates to lead research projects, pilots and initiatives on national policy and programs in VET. With this in mind, we're also establishing the Indigenous Centre of Vocational Excellence. The ICOVE, as it will be known, will be a national best practice First Nations hub promoting high-quality, culturally responsive training opportunities for First Nations students. A First Nations RTO will host the ICOVE and support its operations, to be built around four pillars: innovation, capacity building, policy and advocacy, and research and data.

Because, at the moment, we simply don't know enough about the First Nations RTO sector to make decisions with First Nations people to ensure we make it stronger together, two sector-strengthening scoping projects—one led by the Coalition of Peaks and one by my department—will work to build the appropriate evidence base. These projects will tell us how to go about supporting the sustainability, capability and cultural integrity of the First Nations RTO sector. Later this year, skills ministers from across the country will consider both projects and how they might inform longer term policy reforms under the VET Policy Partnership.

This is not all we're doing in the training space to meet those three elements of the Closing the Gap targets. Last year, the Prime Minister announced a $299 million investment to create 6,000 new jobs in remote communities. With this increase in the number of jobs will come increased demand for skills to help fill those positions. We understand that it's not always possible for people to travel from communities to regional centres to attend training. That's why, in the 2024 budget, the Albanese government announced a $30 million investment in remote training hubs to be established across seven remote Central Australian communities to provide access to high-quality on-country training, operating as a hub-and-spoke model. Desert Peoples Centre Inc. has been contracted to build and deliver these mobile training units to go alongside it to ensure that industries like carpentry, conservation and ecosystem management, cookery, and resource and infrastructure can be built up in these areas.

In addition to this, last year at Garma, the Prime Minister announced a $31 million investment in mobile TAFE to deliver up to 12 projects in outer regional and remote locations around Australia, bringing training opportunities to people rather than asking them to leave country to access training. Of course, free TAFE has had a huge impact in enabling First Nations Australians to access the important skills they want to do jobs that are really necessary, including in communities. In the first three years of the program, there have been more than 44,000 enrolments by First Nations people. These are initiatives—free TAFE, remote training hubs—to provide pathways to ensure that First Nations Australians can attain secure and well-paid jobs on their terms. They build on other programs, like the First Nations stream of the Skills for Education and Employment Program, projects co-designed with local government groups to ensure that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people can build foundational skills on their terms.

When we think about the government's agenda more broadly, tertiary harmonisation is a really critical element, and I'm really pleased that the new Australian Tertiary Education Commission will appoint a statutory First Nations Commissioner. I want to recognise the great work done in that role, as part of the interim ATEC, by Larissa Behrendt AO, now carried on by Professor Tom Calma AO. The Australian Universities Accord:final report emphasised that First Nations participation in tertiary education across learning, teaching and research is absolutely critical to self-determination, which is fundamental to what we are trying to do. So too is the Murtu Yayngiliyn study, which is being undertaken by Jobs and Skills Australia. The study is a national initiative designed to determine the most culturally safe and effective ways to measure the literacy, numeracy and digital literacy levels of First Nations people, developed because for too long this has not been something that we paid attention to. This is being supported by a dedicated cultural advisory panel who provide governance, genuine co-design and shared decision-making authority to hold Jobs and Skills Australia accountable and to ensure this really important study is grounded in cultural knowledge and guidance.

And we know there's more to be done when it comes to VET workforce, ensuring, as is the case at NITA, that First Nations students have the opportunity to be guided by First Nations teachers and trainers. We've been doing some fantastic work with NACCHO to expand the delivery of its successful First Nations Trainer and Assessor Demonstration Project, one example—of many—of government working closely with the Aboriginal community controlled sector and taking on board the understandings that it and only it holds.

With that in mind, as the local member for Scullin, I want to refer to Bubup Wilam, an Aboriginal child and family centre not only delivering early childhood education and care but also, more broadly, culturally appropriate support services. Bubup is also an RTO, delivering quality training at cert III and diploma level, too. That's why our government is backing Bubup and two other First Nations RTOs in Victoria with $9 million to run a three-year pilot looking at strengthening First Nations led VET training, guiding the way to building greater capability in the sector and the long-term growth of Aboriginal community controlled RTOs.

I see Budup Wilam as a model for the work we talk of in Closing the Gap. Community led and responsive to the needs and understandings of community, Budup Wilam is one of 50 backbone organisations working with communities to co-design solutions that get more kids the support they need prior to starting school, as well as doing fantastic work in addressing family and domestic violence. Organisations like this and partnerships based on respectful listening are absolutely fundamental to doing better in closing the gap, which must be an absolute national imperative.

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