David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Employment Participation. Could the minister advise the House of how the government is addressing the skills shortage through its employment services policy?

Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment Participation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, as this is my first opportunity, can I congratulate you on your election to high office. I think you have already shown a great capacity to chair this magnificent chamber.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Help me by getting to the answer.

Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment Participation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Lindsay for his question. It is a very important question. Indeed, this particular area of public policy has a great bearing on Western Sydney. I know he understands that and I certainly will want to work with him on this particular matter over the course of the parliamentary term. Skills and training are vital to Australia’s future prosperity and our ability to compete on the international stage. We all know that a skilled society is central to the next wave of economic reform, but the previous Liberal government left Australia with its worst skills shortage in living memory. That shortage has critically affected key industries and put at risk our economic growth. This is exemplified by the migration occupations in demand list, which has seen the number of occupations on the shortage list increase by 400 per cent since 1999. In less than 10 years, there has been a fourfold increase of occupations on that particular list, which is indeed an indictment of the previous government. We told the Australian people we would improve employment services to get more Australians into work and to help employers get skilled labour to boost their productivity. We will create a new suite of employment programs which will provide better opportunities for training and indeed for a more skilled workforce. The Rudd government are committed to addressing the severe skills shortages in Australia. Before the election, we actually committed to 450,000 vocational education and training places over the next four-year period, which I think is a significant commitment to providing the training required for Australians. In the area of my own portfolio, 175,000 places out of those 450,000 will be provided specifically for Australians entering and re-entering the workforce from unemployment. We are already acting on that commitment, and that is why 20,000 of those training places will be rolled out between 1 April and 30 June this year.

The second part of the honourable member’s question asks why Australia is facing such a severe skills crisis, which is putting at risk our long-term economic prosperity. For almost 12 long years vocational education and training was relegated to the bottom of the government’s priorities. It was not even regarded as a significant matter by the previous government. There is a case in point with respect to that particular assertion. Under the previous government the number of apprenticeships and traineeships commenced as a result of a Job Network placement fell by more than half. Between 1998 and 1999 there were 32,807 places compared with only 14,925 in the financial year 2006-07. That is a disgrace. That is an indictment of the self-absorption, the self-interest and the incompetence of the previous government. If you want to see some more signs of that, watch Four Corners tonight because we know there will be versions of history and revisionism going on. There will be many versions, as we know. It will underline—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Minister for Employment Participation is starting to debate the answer.

Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment Participation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

how absorbed the previous government was. There was no investment in training; there was just a ‘get them into any job at any cost’ mentality. In my portfolio, that blinkered approach created an employment system with the wrong emphasis, where training and education had little or no value. I refer the House to the words of the Age’s economics editor, who only on 5 February said: ‘The Howard government dropped the ball on skills training.’ Indeed it did. And as recently as two days ago the Daily Telegraph reported on a survey conducted by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research. It found that 80 per cent of large employers have had difficulty recruiting over the last 12 months. That is 80 per cent of large employers, up from 68 per cent in 2005.

The Rudd government is currently waging a war on inflation. We will continue to fight that war, something that was neglected by the previous government for more than a decade.