Carina Garland (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Jobs and Skills Australia Amendment Bill 2023 is a really important bill before the House. Australia, of course, is facing a skills crisis that requires urgent action—this is something which has been quite well ventilated.

Before I begin speaking about the bill, I just want to remark on some of the comments that were made by the previous speaker. I want to invite the previous speaker to reflect on the fact that comments made about union members were highly disrespectful to the carers, teachers and frontline workers who kept this country going during the pandemic. Earlier today we heard about the bill on the aged-care sector, and I note that there were platitudes made by those opposite about the importance of the work that carers in the aged-care sector do. I would remark that those workers are more often than not union members, and that they deserve respect and better than the comments made about them this morning.

Our government respects workers. That's why we've introduced an amendment that would establish Jobs and Skills Australia as a statutory body to address the skills crisis, to really ensure that we're able to work in partnership with the state and territory governments, business, industry leaders, unions and education and training providers to build the skilled workforce that Australia needs for the future. Jobs and Skills Australia was established as an interim body in November 2022, and has begun the important work of providing independent advice on a range of workforce skills and training issues.

One of the very first things our government did upon our election was to hold the Jobs and Skills Summit here in Canberra. I too, in my electorate of Chisholm, held a jobs and skills forum, and I wrote to the Treasurer about our local discussions as he was coordinating that process. It was a really wonderful opportunity to bring together so many different parts of my community to talk about what we could do collectively to address the skills crisis and create better jobs for people in Australia.

To ensure that stakeholders views were considered in the design of the permanent Jobs and Skills Australia structure, the legislation has been introduced in two phases. We're now introducing this amendment bill to establish the ongoing governance, structure and functions of Jobs and Skills Australia. This bill will support the expanded and clarified functions and governance model of Jobs and Skills Australia. This has been informed by significant stakeholder engagement through the Jobs and Skills Summit that I have mentioned already, the Senate committee inquiry into the first bill, a discussion paper seeking public comment and bilateral and other targeted engagement. Ours is a consultative government.

The current skills and labour market issues facing Australia are significant. The country has the second-highest labour supply shortages across all OECD countries. A staggering three million Australians lack the fundamental skills required to participate in training and secure work. An estimated nine out of 10 new jobs will require postsecondary school education, with four of these requiring VET qualifications. We are doing a lot in the space of vocational education and training as a government with the introduction of fee-free TAFE.

As a nation, we're experiencing skills shortages across many critical industries, with the top 20 occupations in demand showing seven with a shortage driven by a lack of people with the required skills, reinforcing the importance of our skills system in addressing these shortages. We know the labour market remains tight, with unemployment expected to remain low for the short term. The tightness is causing challenges for our labour market and for employers. In December of last year, the recruitment difficulty rate for occupations were sitting at 65 per cent. That means that 65 per cent of recruiting employers reported experiencing difficulty hiring staff in their most recent recruitment round. Many of the vital industries that rely on VET graduates are facing workforce shortages, and this has been made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic and a related reduction in migration.

Our government understands that urgent action is needed to address skills shortages and to manage participation with the type of skills in demand now and in the future. That's why we are introducing this amendment. The proposed permanent Jobs and Skills Australia will take on a broader range of functions. This will including identifying labour market imbalances, analysing the role played by the demand and supply of skills, building an evidence base of the impact of various workplace arrangements, including insecure work, on economic and social outcomes. It will analyse workforce and skills needs to support decision-making in relation to Australia's migration program and in regional development. It will provide tripartite advice to the government to ensure Australia's training and broader education systems deliver the skilled workers that industry needs.

Our government is, of course, absolutely committed to investment in vocational education and training to address skills shortages in Australia. In the October budget, we allocated $6.3 billion for VET, which is $451 million higher than estimated in the March budget of last year. This funding includes 180,000 new fee-free TAFE and vocational education places in 2023. That is part of a larger investment of $921.7 million over five years to strengthen Australia's VET system and address skills shortages. It remains a source of pride to me and my community that the first visit that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese took to Melbourne post the election was to my electorate of Chisholm and specifically to the Drummond Street campus of Holmesglen TAFE, home to the Victorian Tunnelling Centre. I enjoy frequent visits to the TAFEs in my electorate, and I am so thrilled to be part of a government that is doing all we can to support the vocational education sector.

Our government is providing funding transfers of $2.3 billion to state and territory governments to support their skills systems in the 2022-23 financial year, and that is more investment than the previous government made. Jobs and Skills Australia will provide independent advice to address skills shortages, including by conducting a clean energy capacity study and a national study on adult literacy, numeracy and digital literacy skills. Immediate actions include the delivery of around 180 fee-free TAFE places, as mentioned, and those are in the areas of highest skills need. That includes converting existing government funded places to fee-free places. There will be new places and specific aged-care places from the previous JobTrainer announcement as well.

We have a long-term plan for skills and for good secure jobs. We are going to continue our work in collaboration with the states and territories to deliver a new five-year National Skills Agreement in accordance with the vision and guiding principles agreed by skills ministers and endorsed by National Cabinet in August of last year. The establishment of Jobs and Skills Australia is a critical step towards addressing Australia's skills crisis, and this amendment will provide the necessary resources and support to ensure that Australia can build a skilled workforce for the future—a better future for all. I urge all members of the House to support this amendment.

James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As has been indicated by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, the coalition is supporting the Jobs and Skills Australia Amendment Bill 2023. We welcome jobs and skills as an area of focus because we do hold serious concerns about the forward profile of what our workforce demands are in this country and what the supply side of that is going to be. It would be remiss of me not to use as a focus not only the defence industry and the excellent opportunities that the AUKUS announcement provide but also, equally, the risk that if we don't get the workforce needs right then an enormous amount of opportunity might not be fully realised, particularly for my home state of South Australia.

Obviously, shipbuilding has been a significant feature of the South Australian economy for a very long time. That goes back to the Playford era, with the shipyards at Whyalla, and, of course, the Collins class submarine decision that saw the submarine yards developed through the eighties and nineties to build the six Collins submarines. We built the air warfare destroyers for the Royal Australian Navy in Adelaide. We are now cutting steel and completing prototyping of the Hunter class type 26 BAE frigates, the antisubmarine warfare frigates, in Port Adelaide. Most exciting is the opportunity to construct nuclear submarines, nuclear-propelled conventionally armed submarines, for the future requirements of the Royal Australian Navy through the AUKUS partnership.

The skills requirements around that are obviously some of the most complex that we've ever faced in the history of our nation, because building a nuclear submarine is going to be the most complicated engineering feat that we've ever undertaken. Just building conventional submarines is extremely complicated. I remember that in briefings on the Attack class submarine program, a gentleman who had worked for Airbus, putting together the A380s, said that there are about 125,000 parts in an Airbus A380 and that there were going to be more than a million in the conventional submarines that we were going to acquire before the AUKUS opportunity presented itself. So this is a spectacular opportunity, but one that is at risk if we don't get the workforce and training right.

Of course, what we know about the AUKUS deal is that we'll be building a submarine which is also going to be built by the Brits in Barrow-in-Furness, north of Liverpool, where they already build the Astute class submarine at the BAE shipyard there. They will be building the AUKUS submarine. They'll start that before we do here in Australia—specifically, out of the Osborne shipyard in my home city of Adelaide. They're talking about building theirs by 2037. On the government's announced time line, ours will be in 2042. So they'll have a five-year head start in the UK to build a submarine that will be identical to the one that we'll then build in Osborne.

The reason I dwell on that is that I foresee some serious risks, if we're not careful and don't maximise the jobs and the economic and the industrial outcomes in Australia. If the UK are doing what we'll be doing five years early then there's a significant risk, particularly through the supply chain. I don't think there's any likelihood that we won't assemble submarines at Osborne, and that's not an insignificant number of jobs. But the lion's share of the jobs are with all the companies that will supply that program. The companies supplying the UK program will be very hungry to supply the Australian program as well, and they'll have a five-year head start. That's something which is very significant, and a very significant risk—particularly given what has been confirmed to me and other members of parliament: there's no Australian industry content requirement in the AUKUS submarine program. Nothing in the agreements made so far requires a minimum amount of industry content or a minimum amount of spend in Australia.

When we were in government and undertaking significant decisions around shipbuilding, the then opposition, the Labor Party, had Australian industry content as an article of faith—as the most significant relevant factor in major shipbuilding decisions. To be fair, we, as a government, also made those industry commitments. We always said, 'Yes, this is the minimum amount of Australian industry content we're going to have in these major shipbuilding programs.' That's completely missing from the AUKUS agreement. So I'm watching this very, very closely and carefully because in obtaining this excellent capability for the Royal Australian Navy it's vitally important that we also make sure we secure the economic outcome. In turn, that provides the sovereignty we must have as a nation. We have to build these submarines and we have to have the lion's share of the supply chain coming from our own country. Sovereignty only comes around things like a shipbuilding program if we have the capability in our nation to sustain and maintain that capability.

In the case of the AUKUS submarines we know, obviously, that the nuclear propulsion system will be coming from our offshore partners. Obviously, that's something which has bipartisan support. We know that this technology is very significant, in the sense that, like many other countries which have nuclear propulsion, we don't have to refuel the reactor. My understanding, for example, of how the French operate their Barracuda and Scorpene nuclear submarines, is that they have to refuel the reactors every 10 years or so. We won't have to do that with this US technology, which the UK has also had access to for some time. This means, hopefully, that the reactor doesn't have to be touched for a good three decades, which is the whole life of the submarines. But we need to be able to manufacture and sustain the rest of the submarine here. That's so we have sovereignty and aren't relying on someone else if there's an issue with a particular component of the submarine.

That's very relevant to this bill on jobs and skills—if we don't get the skills and training right. I'm guessing—assuming—that this agency which is being created will play an enormous role in identifying the necessary workforce and ensuring that it's trained to maximise Australian industry participation in the AUKUS submarine program. I hope that's the case, and that the government is looking very seriously at this to make sure there's no excuse to start giving contracts to UK and US firms at the expense of Australian firms. That's because the UK gets a five-year head start on this program and they'll have business saying: 'We're already producing that particular component for the UK AUKUS submarines and it's the same submarine. It's much safer to choose this UK business over an Australian business.' If, equally, Australian businesses are not being provided with the opportunities to supply into the UK program—and we're not insisting on that. We're putting billions of dollars into the shipyards in the UK and US through this deal. That's fine, but there better be an economic dividend for Australian businesses and Australian industry capability out of this.

What has not been envisaged or suggested is that we're ultimately going to spend a lot of money on an excellent capability for our Navy, which we all support, but the vast majority of the investment should bring with it a great dividend of economic and industrial activity in this country. We need this agency—which we're debating now—to be on top of this, and we need the government to have a broad agenda to make sure that the extreme majority of what could be more than $300 billion worth of Australian taxpayer expenditure will be spent in the Australian economy. Then we get an outcome for the Royal Australian Navy, from a capability point of view, but we also get an enormous economic outcome for this country.

I mentioned in an earlier debate some of the developing workforce challenges in our economy. Particularly in the care sector, we know that this is becoming more and more significant. I am anticipating and hoping that this agency, Jobs and Skills Australia, is also going to be looking very closely at that category. I said in that debate, and I reconfirm again now, in no way when we talk about the care sector do we suggest that the workforce is homogenous and they should be treated exactly the same way, whether they're in the aged-care workforce, healthcare workforce, disability care workforce or childcare workforce. There are very specific skill sets and very high-quality people that work in all those sectors. They are trained specifically for those roles they hold.

But the thing those various areas have in common is that they've all got the same very significant projected workforce shortages into the future. We've had debates in this place about child care and disability care and the NDIS. The health system, of course, more broadly has enormous workforce challenges. They all have a widening gap between the future demand for employees in those sectors and the projected future workforce. Those forward projections are getting quite frightening, and we need to urgently take very significant and comprehensive action to come up with a multifaceted solution to that growing challenge.

I'm sure all members hear this from these types of service providers and businesses in their electorates, all the time. I certainly do. It doesn't matter if it's aged care, if it's local health service providers, child-care providers, disability services providers—whatever it might be, they are struggling desperately with workforce, and that's right now. These are in areas where the projected demand is growing dramatically into the future, and no-one is arguing with or disputing that. We know we're going to need an ever-increasing and larger workforce in all those various care services areas. If we've got shortages now, where are we going to be in five or 10 years time? It's a very concerning outlook.

I hope, as the coalition supports this bill, that we're going to see a very serious body of work. I'm sure this agency, Jobs and Skills Australia, will have a big role to play. You'd hope so, given the outline of what the agency is meant to be doing into the future. But we need to see from the government, through agencies like this and more generally—and hopefully something specific in the budget—a really significant investment in the training and the skills for these massive workforce shortages that we can see coming down the tunnel towards us.

I've touched on a few areas of the economy where this is the case, but it's obviously much broader than that. We know that in many agricultural industries there are shortages in place as well. We in the coalition support the bill.

We do have amendments that the member for Farrer outlined, which obviously I strongly support. I hope that those amendments will be successful on this bill because they are important from a governance point of view and the way in which this ministerial advisory body is going to be established and appointed, who it is going to represent and what experience and expertise are going to be in place there. We very much commend those amendments to the chamber and hope that the government sees the value in them, because they will dramatically improve this bill as it stands.

More broadly, in summing up, I do call again on the government using Jobs and Skills Australia and any other capacity before them to bring forward a very comprehensive and thorough workforce training strategy for our economy, because we desperately need it. With that, I commend the amendments to the House.

Anne Stanley (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make my contribution to the debate on the Jobs and Skills Australia Amendment Bill 2023. Australia will experience difficult challenges in the long-term regarding our workforce, with net zero transition creating entirely new industries and the care economy booming as our population ages. Even in the short term, there are challenges. With Australia experiencing record-low unemployment, the labour market is becoming increasingly tight. As of February 2023, the unemployment rate is sitting at 3.5 per cent and it is something this government is proud of because it is not just a monthly statistic but it also means more Australians are getting into the workforce, which is, of course, a positive. But coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic and the opening up of the economy last year, there has been a skills shortage in sectors all across Australia.

Just recently, the new data from the Jobs and Skills Australia quarterly labour market update revealed the top 20 in-demand occupations. Critical occupations such as aged-care workers, nurses and childcare workers top the list. As of December 2022, we saw the number of occupations that were experiencing skills shortages double in 12 months—that is, 286 occupations that are currently finding it hard to recruit workers. The impact this will have in the short term is already being felt in both the economic data and in services that Australians rely on like those in the care economy. The Albanese government is committed to addressing these job shortages while preserving our record-low unemployment. It is a difficult task and an incredibly fine balancing act. Immigration will play a role as developed economies race to attract skilled workers, and our government is making it more attractive to immigrate to Australia for those skills that we need.

The Albanese government has seen a significant reduction in visa backlog and has updated the priorities skills list to reflect the needs of our economy. I commend the work of the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs and the Minister for Skills and Training in those areas. But this problem is complex, and immigration can only be one part of the solution. The other solution requires investment in training and upskilling, which the Albanese government has focused on over the past 10 months.

In the October budget 2022-23 budget, our government budgeted $6.3 billion for vocational education and training in this financial year, which is $450 million higher than estimated in the March 2022-23 budget. The Albanese government's commitment to provide 180,000 fee-free tape places in 2023 to start to address the skills shortages is part of the overall commitment to deliver 480,000 fee-free TAFE places. These places are for Australians from all backgrounds who are looking provide themselves with the skills to get jobs that interest them and that are desperately needed.

The quarterly labour market update also showed over 60 per cent of total employment growth was in occupations that require a VET qualification, highlighting the importance of continuing funding to our VET system and our government's fee-free TAFE places. The government will continue to work with the states and territories, with the Commonwealth providing $2.3 billion as part of our overall investment in funding transfers to support these skills systems. Collaboration and coordination are critical because it will take more than one layer of government to alleviate the short-term skills shortages while ensuring Australia has an increasingly skilled workforce for the future. That's why this year we will work on a new five-year national skills agreement. Australia must ensure we can support those in training and completing an apprenticeship so they can become the skilled workers we need. We established the new energy apprenticeship program to provide direct financial assistance to help with cost-of-living pressures for Australian apprentices in the clean energy sector. We have increased the number of occupations on the Australian Apprenticeships Priority List to 111, meaning more eligible Australia apprentices will receive direct financial assistance.

It's not just the VET sector; 36 per cent of total employment growth has been in university qualified jobs. The university sector had been hit hard over the last few years, and the Albanese government, through the Minister for Education, is committed to delivering on the ambitious Universities Accord by December, with an interim report expected in June. This will ensure the tertiary sector can provide the skills Australians need for the future and a range of other issues that will be worked through. It will be broad, and the Minister for Education will have an incredibly important task ahead of him.

The solution to the skills shortages is complex. This bill is the next step to address the issues impacting on the labour market. We cannot afford to react to these challenges as they happen; there must be structured responses, and that requires evidence to guide and inform policy. Last year the Albanese government established the interim Jobs and Skills Australia, which has already provided advice and data on the state of the workforce in the short time it's been running. The body initiated the Clean Energy Capacity Study, which will assess the workforce needs of Australia's transition to a clean energy economy. This is important work and will continue under the permanent body established in the legislation we are debating today.

The bill sets out the body's functions, operations and structure based on a broad consultation from industry, business, state and territory governments, unions and education providers, and there will be a high level of engagement, with over 130 submissions received, because stakeholders across economy recognise the importance of this body. The government is committed to tripartisanship in the design of this body—that is, collaboration between government, unions and employers—so the body can provide advice that is relevant in addressing the skills crisis we are facing.

The bill will also create a ministerial advisory board, which will consist of state and territory representatives, industry stakeholders, unions, education providers and other members of Jobs and Skills Australia—which will be required to consult the board in the development of its work plans. Additionally it will be fair and equitable. Unions and employer groups will be balanced, with three representatives each. Jobs and Skills Australia will be headed by a commissioner appointed on a permanent basis, with the support of two deputy commissioners who will be appointed long term, and all of these appointments will be through a merit-based selection process in line with the APS merit and transparency guidelines.

The functions of the body will be broad to ensure flexibility in its responses to changing economic conditions and complex situations. It will be able to identify labour market imbalances, analyse workforce skills and the need to assist in migration programs—especially in regional, remote or rural areas—and undertake studies to assess the outcomes of historically disadvantaged groups, such as over 55s, youth, people with a disability, women and First Nations people. Its functions will extend not just to the quantity of jobs but also their quality. Recently we've seen a rise of insecure work in Australia, with an estimated 20 to 25 per cent of the workforce lacking job security. Insecure work is increasingly having economic and social impact, with harm to both mental and physical health of the workforce. But more evidence needs to be gathered, and this body will do that, building an evidence base on these insecure work arrangements.

Evidence gathering is an important function of this body and will help inform all stakeholders on what needs to be done to support and secure the Australian workforce in the short, medium and long term. The permanent establishment of Jobs and Skills Australia will be a benefit for government, business and workers, providing independent and evidence-based advice on these challenges. There are big challenges facing our economy and our future workforce, but the Albanese government is working in collaboration with other levels of government to ensure we have the skilled workforce we need to adapt to net zero transition, create manufacturing jobs, fill increasing service roles and care for our ageing population. We will continue to build a better economy for all Australians, and Jobs and Skills Australia will play an important part in that process. I commend the bill to the House.

Jenny Ware (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about the Jobs and Skills Australia Amendment Bill 2023. As the honourable member for Sturt has indicated, the coalition is supporting this legislation, and we have put forward some amendments that I also commend to the government to consider. The bill is fairly benign in its content, but it deals with a very important issue, which is Jobs and Skills Australia and how we are going to address the massive skills shortage we have within our country. The bill is a second tranche of legislation related to Jobs and Skills Australia, and it seeks primarily to finalise governance arrangements for the agency, which will still set within the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations.

The bill does a few other things. It changes the name of the director of Jobs and Skills Australia to the Jobs and Skills Commissioner and establishes that there will also be up to two deputy commissioners. The bill legislates that the Jobs and Skills Commissioner develop and table a work plan for each financial year, which must also be published online. Again, measures like these are supported. The bill outlines that the minister must commence a review into the operation of the act within two years of commencement. Again, that's not a problem.

The bill does also establish the ministerial advisory board of the Jobs and Skills Australia agency, and it mandates a couple of things. This is important. There are: a chair; two members that represent the interests of the states and territories; three members that represent employee organisations—that is, unions; three members purportedly representing employer organisations; and not more than four other members. The bill also widens the remit of Jobs and Skills Australia to include the impact of workplace relations arrangements, including the impact of insecure work on economic and social outcomes. Of course, any attempt to upskill Australians, create more jobs and address the skills shortage that we have in our country is highly commended.

In my electorate of Hughes, it would not be surprising that we also have a massive skills shortage. Everybody I speak to from professional services, such as accountants, lawyers and our local doctors, are all saying that they simply do not have enough staff and they cannot get the appropriate workers. Then we turn also to our local cafes and coffee shops. They are short of baristas and waitstaff. It is across the board. I know that the two local councils in my electorate are similarly struggling with both indoor and outdoor staff across the board.

This bill was in its infancy when the current Prime Minister, former opposition leader Anthony Albanese, said on 29 October 2019:

Today I announce that Labor in Government will establish a new national partnership to drive improved outcomes in the vocational education and training sector and to strengthen workforce planning, particularly in the growing sectors of our economy:

Jobs and Skills Australia will be a genuine partnership across all sectors—business leaders, both large and small; State and Territory governments; unions; education providers; and those who understand particular regions.

If that was all that was in this proposed legislation, then we would indeed say congratulations to the Prime Minister and to the government. Any improvements to the vocational education and training sector are to be commended and are supported by this side of the House. The Australian vocational education and training sector, or the VET sector, delivers outstanding education and training through a variety of institutions like public TAFE and also through private registered training organisations, universities and our school system. It's a dynamic and responsive sector that supports millions of students each year to obtain the skills and knowledge— (Time expired)

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate will be resumed at a later hour. You've been interrupted, so you'll be granted leave to resume when the debate is resumed.