Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I said during the tabling in the House earlier today of the report Skills: rural Australia’s need by the Standing Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, a skilled rural workforce is critical to our economic future. It is also important for the survival of rural industries and rural communities in the face of increasing international competition. I think it is evident that the level of education in our agriculture workforce in the past has a low incidence of post-school qualifications, particularly at the tertiary level. Rural workers need to be skilled and there are significant gaps in our capacity to address those shortages.

It was evident through the many submissions and deputations to the committee that we need to address negative perceptions of rural industries. There are positive career prospects available in forestry and agriculture and the many support and research services surrounding those industries. In order for the skills to be developed, the committee realised there was a need to develop some national strategies, such as a national program for rural skills training in schools, a national framework for the reinvigoration of our agriculture colleges, a review of the Australian Apprenticeships scheme with reference to consistency in the funding of FarmBis, scholarships programs and/or HECS exemptions at the higher education level, and pathways that allow for transition from VET to university in the rural skills training and education area. We also need to have a strategy to promote the role of agriculture and forestry in Australian society and in schools. Primary industry careers are not seen as sexy and desirable as there are negative pictures being painted by the presence of long-term drought and long hours of work. There is a drought on and you can generally make a lot more money working in the mines than you can on a farm—so why would anyone want to study agriculture?

The number of agricultural education courses in Australia has been declining for years but there are still students enrolling at universities and colleges around the country in the hope of making a future from the land. A recent ABC program stated that the Australian Institute of Agricultural Science and Technology says this area of education has lost its identity, focus and relevance, and needs to be revamped. The institute’s Chair of Education in South Australia, Geoff Thomas, who gave evidence to our committee, has written a discussion paper claiming university courses need to become less specialised, and focused more on people and less on plants and animals.

One of the lecturers in horticulture at Charles Darwin University, Emily Hinds, said there was a perception that horticulture was just glorified gardening. She says it is tough to get people interested in the courses but that there are new career prospects opening up, including in environmental science and in the rehabilitation of mining sites. Her students are looking for jobs in areas like nurseries and landscaping, and many are keen, in changing careers, to spend more time outdoors.

I believe that future careers in the rural sector are an immense challenge and very exciting. So much is changing, and although there are problems there are huge rewards for those who can solve some of those problems. It was this I was trying to address when pursuing the need for vocational education and training to be more responsive to and flexible for the needs of primary industry. Training should provide people with real skills and meaningful qualifications so our young people can take up those challenges with the energy required to problem solve. Young people are prepared to take on the challenges, but they need to have the tools to do so. They also need to have career paths so they can continue learning and training and continue to be rewarded for their work.

In addition to the recommendations for rural skills and training, further recommendations have been made with regard to the regulatory framework for VET, vocational education and training. The Australian Quality Training Framework needs to be revisited to allow greater flexibility in the appointment and accreditation of training instructors, particularly in relation to the recognition of prior skills and competencies, and to make adoption of new training packages and competencies in rural skills faster and easier. That came through in a big way.

Flexibility in courses should ensure that subjects such as hydrology, dam assessment and farm drought proofing are on the agenda as well as animal husbandry. We have gone beyond just dealing with land management; we have to be conscious of sustainability while dealing with the economic side of agricultural industry. We also need to invest in research within rural industries. There needs to be greater certainty in funding research, especially for those with a proven track record.

Developing industries need to be recognised, such as the contribution of the beekeeping industry for Australia’s agriculture. In the past we have exported honey in mass quantities to have it mixed with inferior European product. Tasmania has now proved there is a huge market for our honey labelled as Australian, with its high quality. It is the best in the world. It is something we should put further research into, especially the marketing and ways of overcoming quarantine controls that do not recognise our disease-free status.

Another area in which we have been a strong advocate is that of on-ground services. The Australian government needs to develop, in conjunction with the state and territory governments, a national extension framework to coordinate national extension services throughout Australia and to define the roles of all those involved. A specific extension component in all funding arrangements for research organisations should be provided by the Australian government. This needs to be in addition to, and not at the expense of, research funding.

This report provides a plan for the future of rural skills in Australia. Given the critical nature of the issue, the need to embrace education and training and make changes to VET, the availability and adequacy of research and the provision of extension and advisory services are key areas that need to be addressed if the skills needs of rural Australia are to be met. I believe this report is important. There is a huge gap between the skills available in the regions and those that we should have. This report must not be left to become mouldy on a shelf somewhere. The recommendations are there to be implemented. It does not matter which side of politics one comes from, the problems have to be addressed. So I am recommending the report to the government and any government in waiting.

Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I acknowledge the very difficult job the secretariat had in putting together this report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry on rural skills. The previous secretary, Mr Ian Dundas, resigned from his position and went on to other things. I wish him well. I thank him for the significant contribution he and his wife, Marlene Dundas, made to this committee. I also compliment Janet Holmes, the new secretary, who is ably assisted by Mr Bill Pender, and the other secretarial staff on the significant contribution they made in pulling this information together in a very brief period of time, not having had full carriage of the inquiry from day one. I think that needed to be said because I know all members of the committee are very much appreciative of the significant contribution the secretariat have made to this report.

I also pick up on the point my parliamentary colleague the member for Lyons made about a highly skilled rural workforce being vital to the economic future of Australia. I do not think over the last three or four decades that governments—territory, state and federal—have understood just how significant the contribution of people in rural Australia has been to the economy of this country. I think we take it for granted from time to time. Sadly, during the modern-day era, we have tended to see exercises of futility in the quest to pass some services offered by government on to the private sector. Governments have foolishly given away work that they supplied to the rural sector and therefore have left the very valuable experience of extension officers, who have made an enormous positive contribution to rural and regional Australia.

I am mindful of the fact that three members of the New South Wales parliament in another phase of my employment career crossed the floor and voted against the whole government because they were concerned that a very valuable service that was supplied by the government was being removed. We predicted that it would create a massive problem in the rural sector. Sadly, we were proven to be correct. One of those members sits in the chamber with me here today—Tony Windsor, who was then the Independent member for Tamworth. That is the sort of thing that governments fail on when they do not seriously consider the ramifications of downsizing or of rubbing out a department that is costing the taxpayer a bit of money but is delivering unexpected positives for the economy of the country in keeping rural industries alive. That particular action over the years has instilled a negative perception surrounding agriculture and forestry. We heard evidence about the problems associated with that perception. The report illustrates the point I make on this issue. On page 12, under the heading ‘Getting people in—changing perceptions of agriculture’, the report states:

1.38  Training people in rural skills is vital, but the people have to be there to train. As Mr Arthur Blewitt, CEO of the Agri-Food Industry Skills Council, told the committee, ‘worrying about skills is not terribly relevant unless you have people out there who want to work in those areas’. Or as Mr Graham Truscott, General Manager of the Australian Beef Industry Foundation, put it, ‘there is a people shortage first and a skills shortage second in the industry’.

1.39  One of the critical issues facing Australian agriculture and forestry is convincing people that there are worthwhile careers to be had in those industries. Mr Julian Breheny, a research officer with the Western Australian Farmers Federation, noted that agriculture ‘is seen as a sunset career or sunset industry’, while Dr Walter Cox, Chairman of the Board, Agricultural Research Western Australia, stated: ‘Currently, agriculture is seen as a second-class career rather than as a first-choice career’.

Unfortunately, that sort of mentality has flowed on into the high-skills area. Career officers have treated agriculture as a thing that the students really should not participate in if they want to make a future for themselves outside of their schooling time. Sadly, that has had a significant impact on people.

But it goes beyond that. How can we have in this country a situation, for example, where people come and give us evidence on the serious situation that is occurring in the honeybee industry? We heard evidence about the honeybee industry. In relative terms, as far as Australia is concerned, it makes a reasonably meagre contribution to the economy of the country—about $60 million. What that does overlook is the fact that the honeybee pollinates 60 to 70 per cent of our plant life, thereby creating a massive food source for the nation as a whole and enhancing the export potential and domestic potential of foodstuffs in this great country of ours.

Sadly, the cost-cutting exercise has created a problem there. It is obvious that the training organisations and the universities have seen very little financial return or income coming from the sorts of industries where small groups of people want to pick up a course and learn that particular skill in that particular industry. As a result of that, we have seen a situation where we no longer train people in the honeybee industry. What have we done? We look to importing people from Third World countries to prop up the honeybee industry, one of the most significant industries in terms of its outcome for this great country of ours. The committee has put in some very relevant recommendations in terms of the honeybee industry. Also, more importantly, it has made some very sensible recommendations centred on extension officers—the training of extension officers and why we need them.

I would like to take this opportunity whilst I am on my feet to compliment the committee, particularly those members who have given a personal commitment to make sure that the committee keeps functioning in an appropriate way by making themselves available in sometimes very difficult circumstances when we move around the countryside taking evidence. It is true to say that we took 117 submissions and attended some 22 public hearings. We talked to hundreds and hundreds of people about this issue. It was only because of the commitment of these people as parliamentarians that we were able to bring the information back, get it disseminated by our very capable secretariat and then come up with what I believe is a very good and sound report which hopefully the minister and the government will pick up by way of the recommendations contained therein.

I have been fortunate to be chair of this committee for a couple of years now. It was very successful in issuing a report on the impact of feral animals on agriculture. The committee is working together in a unified way in the best interests of rural and regional people. I thank each and every member of that committee for the contribution that they made. Without any further ado, I commend the report to all members of the parliament and particularly our rural based parliamentary colleagues from both sides of the House. I think it is an excellent opportunity for them to learn just how significant the rural skills needs are in Australia and it needs the support of all of our parliamentary colleagues to make sure that the recommendations are enforced and followed by the government.

Duncan Kerr (Denison, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member. I am sure that all members of the committee would endorse the generous remarks you have made with respect to your colleagues and the staff of the committee.

Gavan O'Connor (Corio, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise in the House today along with my parliamentary colleagues from across the political spectrum to endorse the House Standing Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry report Skills: rural Australia’s need. I congratulate fellow members of the committee on their dedicated efforts in producing this report, and members of our secretariat for their professional energy, skill and untiring work in supporting all members throughout the course of this inquiry. This report into skills in the rural sector mirrors the situation that Australia faces in the general economy—that is, Australia needs specific, significant additional investment in education, training, research and skill development if it is to maintain its competitive edge in global agricultural markets in coming decades.

We all know what a highly skilled occupation farming is today. Not only are farmers production specialists in the modern farming environment; they are also required to have significant financial, marketing, mechanical, information technology and land and farm management skills to underpin production activities. That is to name just a few. For farming in Australia to survive in the new millennium we need to farm smarter and, as I mentioned at the press conference, we need smart farmers.

The key to ensuring that our farmers have the skills to become more productive and competitive in these corrupted global markets in the new millennium is to increase our investment as a society in rural research, education and training. That is the central message of this excellent report, Skills: rural Australia’s need. Australian farmers face enormous challenges in coming decades—climate change, radical changes in consumer tastes, energy constraints, corrupted markets, food standards and safety, water and drought issues. They are but a few of those big issues that have to be met head-on by the sector if it is to continue to play a pivotal role in the economic development of rural and regional Australia and the national economy.

The recommendations in this report range from the general to the quite specific, but there are several propositions that underpin them and the report. Firstly, there is a central role for the Australian government in the ongoing development of the rural sector’s skill base, be it in properly funding the education and training efforts of agricultural and other institutions. Secondly, there is a need for a high level of cooperation between the Commonwealth and state and territory governments in the skilling of the sector. Thirdly, the image of agriculture and forestry as sophisticated sectors in the Australian economy in which people can work and make a career needs to be actively promoted right from primary and secondary schooling to ensure a reasonable career interest in this sector from young people. Fourthly, there has to be a substantial increase in investment by the Australian government in rural education and training if the sector is to hold its own in the future.

I direct the House to important recommendations relating to farmers’ access to high-speed broadband, reinvigorating agricultural colleges, the establishment of agricultural courses at Australian technical colleges and the need for a national extension framework, as an indication of the practical measures that are contained in this report that are necessary to enhance and secure the future of agriculture in this country.

In an article in the Financial Review on 24 February 2007 entitled ‘When the farming has to stop’, the writers, Andrew Clark and Angus Grigg, refer to an American geographer, Jared Diamond, who, in his book Collapse, says that the range of problems that could become crippling in other developed economies—overgrazing, salinity, soil erosion, water storages, man-made droughts—have already become severe in Australia. I am sure members could add to the list. It is a chilling assessment, and what will be required in future is for farmers to possess a highly developed skill set just to stay in the game. I hope this report stirs some action in government and the general community in this area, where it is acknowledged the future of family and corporate farming resides in the skills of our Australian farmers.

I congratulate the member for Hume on his chairmanship of this committee. I think he is held in high regard on this side of the House as well as the other, and I congratulate him on his leadership in producing this essential report for Australia’s agricultural community.

John Forrest (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to join the other members of the House Standing Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry who have spoken to this important report, Skills: rural Australia’s need. I would like to go right back to its origins. Back in late 2004 there was enormous uncertainty coming out of Victoria with the actions of the University of Melbourne in announcing it was closing seven rural campuses that were predominantly responsible for the delivery of agricultural education. There was quite a furore about that. There has been some resolution: they are still operating, they are not closed, and they have changed their spots. I sought the support of the chair and members of this committee to have an inquiry, and the terms of reference reflect my concerns. There was also an expansion for us to have a look at the whole role of extension services occurring in agriculture. It is good after that long period of collecting evidence to stand here now and deliver a report which has some very strong recommendations included in it.

If you look at the terms of reference you will see that the first one was for the committee to inquire and report on:

1. The availability and adequacy of education and research services in the agriculture sector, including access to vocational training and pathways from vocational education and training to tertiary education and work.

I have been enthusiastically following that theme in my work on the committee because I think it is important given that a lot of the evidence submitted to us was as much about image as anything. There is an image that agriculture is not a positive area in which to exercise some training and seek a career path. That is not true. The member for Corio has highlighted the fact that there are incredibly exciting things happening in agriculture today. There is the use of the technology of geospatial satellites, there is the need to be familiar with soil structures and there are water issues. I know that farmers today in the part of the world that I represent grow wheat on four inches of rain. Historically they had up to 11 inches, yet they can still produce reasonable returns from a reduced rainfall. But this all takes a massive input. My concerns are that we need to continue to find ways to invest, as the member for Corio has said, to ensure that we have a profitable agricultural sector in the future.

There were 29 recommendations that we laboured over and asked the government to respond to. Time does not permit me to speak to all of the recommendations, but all of them are incredibly important. The first one I will make reference to is recommendation 3, which relates to what I have said about trying to do something about this negative image. That recommendation says:

The committee recommends that the Australian Government, in conjunction with State and Territory Governments and industry, develop a national strategy for promoting agriculture and forestry in both primary and secondary schools.

I think the key is to start in primary school so that youngsters have the opportunity to be exposed to some of the exciting things that are in fact happening in agriculture. I commend that recommendation to the government.

The second recommendation which excites me, and which I am pleased that we have been able to strongly recommend, is for a complete reinvigoration of the agricultural college network right across Australia. Previously I had thought that the particular problem on this issue was only Victorian based, but we discovered from evidence that there is exactly the same situation in all of the states—although we discovered some very exciting models in the way agricultural education is being pursued in Western Australia. Deputy Speaker Haase ought to take note of this. He is probably aware that there are great opportunities for networking between the education sector, industry—

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Adams interjecting

John Forrest (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, that is true, but we are talking about agriculture and not mining. Recommendation 8 makes a very strong call:

The committee recommends that the Australian Government, in conjunction with State and Territory Governments, develop a national framework for the reinvigoration of Australia’s agricultural colleges, including:

• Stable and sustained funding for agricultural colleges in each state …

This will probably need some coordination as they cannot all be the trainers of grain producers or the trainers of dairy producers or the trainers of fat lamb or even beef producers. They will need some coordination as to which colleges are best placed to deliver specific centres of education. The recommendation says we need better mechanisms to ensure the connection with industry occurs—and it is not just agricultural industries; it is also those industries that have a direct connection to agriculture: the machinery manufacturers and providers.

The next recommendation which I want to speak to is recommendation 11. It was good to collect evidence, although some of it is different and disparate in terms of support. Take the FarmBis program, which commenced in 1998. I think the general consensus was that FarmBis is regarded as a highly successful program which is actually at the farming end to lift the standards of knowledge of the farming sector itself, whose members are often mature and have long ago lost some of their important study skills. To give some idea of the success of that program, when it first started there were around 82,000 primary producers participating and then a second stage of the program in 2004 had 72,000 participants. Because it was an initial program with a terminal life to be completed in 2008, in the current budget cycle, I think it is important that the government notes that we are recommending that FarmBis be continued because the evidence is that it is delivering.

Recommendation 15 is the recommendation I want to next comment on. The committee recommends that the government, in conjunction with universities and again in conjunction with the state and territory governments—we have to recognise that the states have a very strong role in the provision of education—‘develop consistent and comprehensive pathways for the articulation’ of vocational education and training. This is where youngsters might start such training as early as in year 8 or year 10. They would be exposed to a farming operation or some ancillary service, be it in agronomy or something else. There would be pathways for a youngster to go from their VET training on to some additional training, perhaps post-secondary, that could lead them to become the plant breeders or the soil scientists and PhDs of the future. What a rounded program it is for someone to ultimately end up with a PhD degree if they have started at the ground with their hands dirty and have that knowledge process. So we are recommending very strongly that there be a greater articulation of the whole process, because it is the one thing that Melbourne university missed in Victoria—they did not understand how to make those connections and they failed. Their focus was at the post-tertiary level. They wanted graduates and PhD students. What they fail to understand is that a PhD student in 10 or 12 years time can start from a year 8 or year 9 secondary student. That is why I feel very strongly that is an important recommendation.

I too would like to thank my colleagues, particularly those in the committee secretariat. As the chairman has said, it was a tough job but Janet Holmes has done a sterling job. She came on board on 12 December and finalised the preparation of the report. To all my colleagues, thank you, and to the government I say: ‘Listen to this report. There is accumulated evidence here. We will be looking for a very positive and early response in the interests of Australian agriculture and rural Australia in general.’

Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Transport, Roads and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Main Committee for the opportunity to speak on this report entitled Skills: rural Australia’s need. It is a very fine report. On behalf of the Standing Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, I express my appreciation to the secretariat. They have done a huge amount of work in pooling together all the evidence and the associated material received by the committee over an extended period.

In addressing the report, I think it is fair to say that a quintessential image of Australia used to be the sight of a burly man in a bluey, sweating it out on the floor of a shearing shed, clippers in one hand, the other hand firmly keeping the sheep between his legs. It used to be a common sight in rural Australia but, as severe skills shortages grip rural communities, the role of the shearer, along with so many traditional agricultural and forestry jobs, is fast becoming a thing of the past. This report is about challenging Australia and addressing some of these issues.

Nationally, I think it is also about time we accepted the importance of the rural sector. In that context, Australia historically has had a great wool industry. But it needs about 640 new shearers trained every year in order to keep up with the needs of wool growers and to maintain the 5,000-strong workforce. Yet, far from keeping pace with this demand, the rural skills sector is fast falling behind. Farmhands are now listed as an endangered species and experienced rouseabouts are a rare commodity. Drive into any rural town and the locals will tell you the all too familiar story: increasingly, young people are leaving rural communities for the cities and the mining areas, where they can earn double or more what they can earn on the land and in local regional communities. Those who stay behind are part of a diminishing yet ageing group who are faced with increasing stress and workloads in an increasingly challenging industry. Their life is not easy. Recent years have not been kind to rural areas, which not only face a severe skills crisis but have battled the worst drought in 100 years as well as bushfires and progressively more-competitive global market forces.

As this report rightfully points out, agriculture and farming jobs are no longer fashionable. Unfortunately, they are defined by negative perceptions of a less than dynamic industry with little to offer ambitious young job seekers. It is seen as the sector you turn to if all other options have failed. These, I believe, are very damaging perceptions which I hope this report will assist in turning around. They have effectively contributed to reducing agriculture to merely farming and the forest industry to merely logging. Many of the recommendations in this report are practical. They seek to reverse this oversimplification of two of our most important national industries and, importantly, two key industries for rural, remote and regional Australia.

In that context, I point out that agriculture contributes around three per cent of our GDP, while forestry is responsible for about two per cent of our GDP. Combined, the two industries employ over 410,000 Australians and not surprisingly are the lifeblood of many rural and regional communities. The value of these industries to those communities is well appreciated locally, yet this understanding of the importance they play dramatically declines as you head into regional and city centres. Here we need to work on educating the communities as to the pivotal role agriculture and forestry play in our society and the diverse career prospects open to those people who are prepared to seek them out. That is what this report highlights. I say that because agriculture is more than just farming. It involves scientific research, sustainability, an application of science, farm management, succession planning, human resources and a whole host of fascinating career paths—an opportunity for anyone who wants a challenge in life.

I believe, as a result of this report, that state and territory governments, in association with the private sector and the Australian government, have to work together to develop a coherent approach to the provision of rural skills training and education. The committee, through its report, recommends the development of a national strategy on rural skills training. Let us stop sweeping it under the carpet and face up to our collective responsibilities in partnership with the private sector.

We all appreciate that the national strategy is well overdue and that it should encompass primary and secondary schools—vocational education and training are a must for Australia to go forward—as well as higher education institutions. The current system of education and training provision is inadequate; it is not meeting the needs of industry, as the report clearly spells out. Some within the agriculture and forestry industries have criticised the current system for being inflexible, unresponsive and unable to recognise the often informal nature of rural expertise. I tend to identify with those criticisms, which were brought out in the report.

Obviously there will always be financial and resource constraints governing a sector overall. That is why a national strategy needs to focus on targeted ways forward that provide enough flexibility to accommodate Australia’s vastly varying rural communities yet address the issues that are common throughout rural Australia. The recommendations in the report provide a framework for action—a framework to achieve a national strategy—and they should be seriously considered as a matter of urgency by all sides of politics at state, territory and national levels.

The report also correctly highlights the need for closer cohesion between the research undertaken and its application in the field. We all appreciate that, historically, Australia is well known for its first-class research, which has led to many breakthroughs worldwide. The agriculture and forestry sectors are not exempt from this, yet there is industry concern that much of the research being undertaken is not reaching those farmers who need it most. Once again, the report contains many recommendations that not only go a long way towards bridging the gap between the science lab and the farm gate but also encourage industry to consider the implications for the quality of research being undertaken with short-term funding mechanisms and an ageing research population. In essence, that is the case with agriculture generally, not just the farming community.

At the heart of the report is the fact that rural industries are not being given the recognition that they should be given by us. We only to have cast our minds back to earlier this month and the government’s failure to provide the necessary assurance on managed investment schemes. After heavy pressure, the Prime Minister finally caved in and allowed the continuation of the scheme for the forestry sector but called for a review of the scheme in all other non-forestry areas. Almost overnight, this decision wiped more than $300 million off the value of agribusiness companies. Managed investment schemes have injected over $2 billion into rural communities for plantation expansion alone. With the industry on the verge of realising another $4.5 billion in investment in value-added processing capacity, it has the potential to deliver another 4,600 jobs to rural Australia, which are required as a matter of urgency.

This is the avenue of growth available to the Howard government if it should decide to invest properly in rural Australia instead of considering changes to investment laws that would lead to the loss of up to 10,000 jobs directly and indirectly in rural communities over the long term. Incorrect decisions made in 1997 and changes in the investment regime in the plantation industry have had a huge impact. The industry is entitled to some certainty. We should at least make sure that these issues are put to bed once and for all.

In conclusion, we as a nation need to get serious about rural Australia not just because, historically, Australia has been built on the sheep’s back but because rural Australia is a sector with enormous potential and with a key role to play in our future. The report is about all of us saying: ‘Good work is being done through the committee structure of this House. We now have some practical recommendations for taking the sector forward, provided it is given a hand-up by state and territory governments, in association with the Commonwealth.’ This is not a handout; it is the assistance industry requires to solve the problems that it confronts on a day-to-day basis. I commend the report to the House and I thank the secretariat for the wonderful assistance given to the committee.

Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is certainly a pleasure to follow the member for Batman and other members of the Standing Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry in discussing the committee’s report entitled Skills: rural Australia’s need. It is one of the truly bipartisan committees of the parliament, with members working together for the betterment of agricultural, fisheries and forestry industries all around Australia. Whether Labor, Liberal or Independent—and I see the member for New England is in the chamber—all members of the committee have worked well together to try and come up with recommendations that will help agricultural communities.

I am a beneficiary of agricultural training. I went to Urrbrae Agricultural High School in South Australia. I did a two-year agricultural course, so I have firsthand knowledge of how it works. I am very thankful I did that course because it taught me many things that I perhaps would not have learnt on the farm or through reading and so on. I recognise the importance of training, not only for agriculture but for all areas of skills shortages in rural areas.

It is interesting to note that in my electorate of Barker we have had outstanding changes—almost a quiet revolution—in training. When I was first elected, a little over 200 children were in VET—vocational education and training—in schools. There are now over 2,000. That is a pretty astonishing change to the way we think about training, certainly in my electorate, and I am sure that is followed quite closely by other electorates around Australia. At the same time, when I was first elected, there were 363 apprentices in training. There are now over 3,000—another astonishing change. So things are happening, but this report quite rightly shows that we do have some weaknesses.

I would like to make some comments about those weaknesses and some of the recommendations we made. It was my feeling—and I do not say this for any particular reason, such as one state verses another—that New South Wales needed the greatest changes and emphasis in training in agricultural areas of any of the states that we visited. I do not want to put blame on New South Wales but that was certainly the feeling I got from speaking to people there.

I would like to focus on the rural skills and education recommendations that have been identified throughout this report. Before I do that, I acknowledge the chair, the member for Hume, for his able chairmanship of that committee, and the secretariat, which, as usual, did a wonderful job in helping us come to our decisions.

This country has an Australian apprentices program which provides a valuable mechanism for structuring and funding training in rural skills. We know, through the evidence obtained, that this scheme is not as effective as it should be in providing training to rural trainees and apprentices. I clearly support the overhauling of the administration of this system to ensure that funds and places are directed where they are needed to provide the best outcome for those undertaking the training and, ultimately, improving the skills base of our country. We need to have the appropriate people teaching these skills and we need to have the training conducted in the most appropriate manner. That is pretty easy to say, but we got some very clear evidence that that is not happening.

I should also acknowledge the work that this government has done in setting up Australian technical colleges across Australia and the difference that will make to our future as a nation. By setting up more ATCs, we are increasing the training opportunities in traditional trades skills provided to regional areas. I would, however, like to see one established in my electorate of Barker to allow us to increase the skills my people can provide to our rural areas—even though we are kicking lots of goals. There is a perfect model for an Australian technical college in the electorate of Barker, which would be based on a multicampus facility rather than on the one- or two-campus facilities that we have.

John Forrest (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Bordertown would be good.

Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Bordertown would be quite good, because we could service some of my neighbouring constituencies across the border—and I am sure they would take that up. Along with the committee, I believe that the government should give urgent consideration to establishing agricultural courses at Australian technical colleges with close links to rural areas and consider expanding campuses to such regions as the Barker electorate, which covers the Barossa, Murraylands and Riverlands in the south-east, all of which are important areas requiring skills in agriculture and forestry.

Another way we can continue to enrich the skills of our rural regions is through the FarmBis program, which is a jointly funded by the Commonwealth and the states on a matching basis. FarmBis aims to foster a culture of continuous learning amongst primary producers and encourages them to plan for their future training needs as a part of their overall business planning. The educational and training activities funded by FarmBis are directed at farm management related activities and include general business management, including strategic planning; financial management; marketing; human resource management, including leadership; natural resource management; and production management. FarmBis is a very useful and highly successful program and it is extremely important that the Australian government makes a long-term commitment to the program to give certainty to the industry. It is pretty important that people know where they are going.

Unfortunately, each state has different criteria, and the level of funding for training is proving difficult to manage across borders and national initiatives. There is a further difficulty when one state decides to withdraw from the FarmBis program—and I see that because I have towns in my electorate that are very close to the Victorian border, and in fact to the New South Wales border as well. They come to me and say: ‘Why are we treated differently from our cousins across the border? Isn’t it the same FarmBis program?’ So we really should get some consistency across the whole system. What this clearly does is indicate to a state that it will be disadvantaged while its neighbours move forward and make their businesses bigger. What we need to do is create a nationally consistent approach for FarmBis funding administered directly by the Commonwealth—one management area for all. We have heard very similar thoughts when it comes to managing the Murray-Darling Basin. We clearly need to keep this program and continue to provide it past its current expiry date of 2008.

I agree with the committee’s recommendation that the Australian government develop a national strategy for facilitating industry initiatives in rural skills training, including a coordinating body and funding mechanism for industry initiatives. Currently, a number of industry and producer groups have taken the initiative to develop and package courses directly relevant to their needs—and I welcome that. Who knows the skill shortages better than those who are actually involved in that industry? We have the benefit of those industries identifying needs at a local level—another way of thinking globally but acting locally. The government can use this information and play a coordinating role to prevent different industry groups from reinventing the wheel through lack of communication and coordination.

We need to get our rural areas skilled up to ensure the future of our agriculture, fishing and forestry industries and to keep this nation’s rural areas going. In my own electorate we have a large forestry industry. I went to great pains to, first of all, get a university operating in the region and, secondly, to get Southern Cross University to offer a forestry course. That has been very useful. The more skills people have, the better our future looks. That is a positive for this country and particularly for my electorate of Barker.

I want to see the people of my electorate receiving a higher education in these areas through increased access to scholarships and higher standards of training through the various programs this country offers to our rural people. They will go on to work and manage these industries with the best skills possible because we will have developed our rural or urban skills as a nation. In this particular case, we found there were some distinct differences and failures in the system in rural areas. I think part of that is to do with the distance we have to travel, which anyone who represents a rural electorate would understand. I thank all of those involved in the inquiry. It has been a great pleasure and an honour to be part of this committee and this inquiry.

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As with other members of the Standing Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry I would like to commend the committee secretariat and also the chairman, the member for Hume, for the way in which he has conducted this committee not only for this inquiry but other inquiries that we have embarked upon as well. I listened with interest to the member for Barker and I thought he made some interesting comments on his own background and how that embraced what is happening in his part of the world at the moment.

I will reflect on my background because there are some similarities. I went to the Farrer Memorial Agricultural High School, and I am pleased to say that the committee as part of its deliberations visited that school and I think received some very good evidence from people at the school. I then went on to the University of New England and studied agricultural economics and did a number of other things after that when I was involved in the farm sector. I am 56 years old—I know I look a lot younger—and during that period of my life there was a degree of optimism in agriculture. In the last 15 to 20 years a degree of pessimism has developed. To give a parallel: my elder son, who is 24, went to the same high school, attended the same university and did an agriculture business degree and a degree in natural resource management and cotton production, is now flying a helicopter for a mining company in Western Australia. I think that encapsulates the situation. Obviously there are tremendous opportunities out there. He was the top boy in agriculture in New South Wales. That is not suggesting a big loss to agriculture but I think it says something about how young people are making decisions about their future. Obviously money is an important ingredient in that decision, and the drought and other issues are having their impact as well.

Having young people in agriculture is very important, but I think my age group is about the average age for farmers—the member for Barker being a good deal older. One of the things that I would like to say relates to the policy mix and the way in which government sells the agriculture message, the food production message—and in a sense this also represents the community. I think there are a number of things that we really do have to take on board. Firstly, the policy mix that state and federal governments have had over many years has essentially centralised population. The economic centralist view is that the most effective way to service the greatest number of people in the lowest cost per unit is to put them in a feedlot. That is what we are doing in a sense by concentrating people into our major urban areas, because it is cost-effective.

Just today in the main chamber we had a debate about the cost of urban land and the cost of people living there. What we have done in our policy mix is move people towards those scenarios, and in a sense we have developed an artificial economic base that cannot afford the removal of pressure from our major metropolitan areas because the price of land, the price of accommodation, the price of property and the debt ratios that people have in those communities is so unsustainable that if it actually returned to the real price we would have an economic collapse, and obviously governments would lose their places as well.

The basic question we have to ask in terms of the issues that were raised here today about the role that agriculture plays in our society and the basic question that governments have really got to ask in terms of the policy mix is: do we want agriculture? Do we really want agriculture, or does it provide a cluttering up of the inland that requires roads and other infrastructure to be provided and river systems to be irrigated from et cetera? If you look at the policy mix of the governments, you can see that it is really sending a message that we do not want agriculture. It is making it harder and harder for agriculture to exist. When we look at the sorts of things that the farm sector can do to come to grips with a corrupt world market in terms of most of our grains and most of our products, government policy—federal government policy in particular, but also the states—has been anti the development of agricultural pursuits.

If we look at the renewable energy sector, for instance, we see that anybody who moves into the ethanol or biodiesel sector as of now, under government policy that will come into place in 2011, will be taxed for producing renewable energy. It is this debate that really encapsulates the problem that agriculture has. Because agriculture in Australia has to compete in a world market, and because it produces surpluses, it has to do so at a very cost-effective rate. The profitability for those people in that sector is being eroded, and that is why young people are not going back into the agricultural sector. So I think we in this parliament really have to have a serious look at whether part of that surplus food production that we generate out of this country should be transferred into another market—the energy market, the fuel market. That has a whole different driver in terms of a price regime and could in fact really be a profitability driver for agriculture as we know it, not only in the grains sector but also in the sugarcane area.

The other area in which I think we have been negligent in the current climate change debate is the carbon debate. The Prime Minister put in place a task force to look at carbon sequestration, carbon marketing emissions et cetera. Agriculture was not even included in that committee. The accumulation of humus and organic matter in our soils and some of the new technologies in terms of pasture production are an ideal carbon sink, and we should be looking at the opportunity that agriculture has in terms of entering another market—not only the food market but also the carbon market. There are enormous opportunities there now that carbon trade is starting to take place in the states.

No-till agriculture, where humus and organic matter have advanced, where the infiltration rate of soils has improved, where the soil quality has improved and where soil erosion has decreased are all things that are part of what we should be looking at if we really want to bring agriculture into the new century and address its future in a positive way rather than leaving it back out there, as government policy has tended to do, as producers of food have to face the world market at any price—a corrupted world market price and an artificial domestic cost structure. Blind Freddy can see that that will mean that the farm sector and our young people, whom we would like to encourage into that sector, are going to be marginalised in terms of their profitability base.

Another issue is agroforestry. Even in the $10 billion plan that the Prime Minister is currently talking about, we again have a range of mixed messages. A few years ago we were being encouraged to plant trees because it was going to drop the watertable and improve salinity. Now, in the fine detail of this plan that has been cobbled together on a very small piece of paper, in my view, we see that farm forestry or agroforestry is going to be reinvestigated because of its possible interception of water from the Murray-Darling system. Those are some of the issues where we need some clarity in terms of the long-term nature of agriculture. One of the earlier speakers mentioned managed investment schemes. These are the issues about which we really need to get some long-term certainty in place so that people can make commitments to the agricultural sector.

Briefly, Cotton Basics was raised here earlier. It is a very good training package and can be used as a model for other areas. The agricultural colleges are something that we really have to revisit. Once again, I commend the chairman, the member for Hume, and the others involved in this committee, particularly the people behind the scenes who made a massive contribution. (Time expired)

Debate (on motion by Mr Neville) adjourned.