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

I rise today to mark National Skills Week, an important occasion to celebrate vocational education and training in our country and, with it, the incredible diversity of pathways that it offers to enable Australians to explore all options, as is this year's theme, and to support them to gain the qualifications they want as they skill or reskill to secure good, well-paid, long-term jobs and great careers, to set them up for the future and to help improve our productivity and grow our economy.

As the skills and training minister, I have the great honour to meet VET students and apprentices every week, including at TAFEs, right around the country. The Albanese government is working hard to put TAFE at the centre of the VET system. At TAFE, what we see is this: students that represent as wide a snapshot of Australia as you will find anywhere and, in that diversity, some great connections and sharing of experience; staff that are the biggest advocates going for the opportunity that TAFE provides and who have industry experience and are brimming with excitement for the opportunities that their students will have with the qualifications that they will gain; and facilities that are getting better all the time to meet the aspirations of learners and the evolving needs of our industries. At TAFE campuses you see such a breadth of learning occurring side by side—community services next to IT, next to auto mechanics, next to agriculture. That's part of what makes our TAFEs so special.

It's through free TAFE that I met Caitlin, a nursing student studying in Canberra. Caitlin's a Navy veteran, a single mum and, above all, a brilliant role model for fellow students and others who might be considering taking up a VET pathway. Caitlin's one of the 650,000 enrolments in free TAFE courses since the program started in 2023. By year's end, she will be joining the 170,000 course completions. Stories like Caitlin's underscore how life-changing free TAFE is for thousands of Australians, and Caitlin is one of the very best advocates for free TAFE. She loves talking about it. Her message to others is this: there's never been a better time to take the first step on a path to a new qualification and new career. Now is the moment.

The response to free TAFE really has been remarkable. Australians are backing it in. That's why our government legislated to make free TAFE permanent, with 100,000 places every year from 2027. Sadly, we see some in this place continue to try to undermine free TAFE and to dismiss it. It's unfortunate. This National Skills Week I encourage everyone in this place to visit their local TAFE and chat with the students and hear firsthand about how free TAFE is changing lives.

We know our job is not done. It's estimated that nine out of 10 new jobs in the next decade will require tertiary education, with around half of these requiring a vocational qualification. We need more Australians working in critical industries, like construction, nursing, aged care, manufacturing and early childhood education and care, helping us to turn around the skills challenges our country faces. We know Australians want to be part of this. They want to pursue a career in these industries. The Albanese government is backing Australians to do that. We're backing apprentices, too, supporting them to get into the industries they want to join and supporting them to see through their apprenticeship to the end. Our government continues to be focused on turning apprentice numbers around as we work to address the legacy of a decade where apprentice numbers continued to slip. Now there are 50,000 more apprentices in training than prior to the pandemic. Construction industry apprentice numbers are also up, around 28 per cent higher—a pathway to building the homes Australians need. Pleasingly, 32 per cent more women have now started trade apprenticeships.

All of these numbers are heading in the right direction, and in the Albanese government we are determined to keep driving these improvements. That's why we're delivering a range of measures targeted at getting more apprentices into the industries we need. This includes the critical areas of housing construction and new energy, where apprentices can now benefit from our Key Apprenticeship Program. The new energy stream has already seen strong interest: more than 12,000 sign-ups, introducing more apprentices heading towards the great opportunities that exist in the clean energy industry. They are helping to drive our vital transition towards net zero, a matter of keen interest to members opposite. The housing construction steam started on 1 July this year, and the early data is showing some really promising signs. Over the month of July, 1,291 apprentices were approved under this scheme—450 carpenters and joiners, 370 electrical trades workers and 300 plumbers. These are, of course, all occupations absolutely essential to helping us build more homes for Australians.

I think about someone like Calvin, who I met recently at Victoria University's Sunshine campus. He is absolutely loving his pre-apprenticeship course in building construction carpentry. Calvin likes to work with his hands, learns something new every week and is becoming more and more confident that carpentry is where he wants to spend his career. This Key Apprenticeship Program is another way in which we can support him and people like him to fulfil their ambitions and to make their contribution towards meeting our national goals.

In addition to the Key Apprenticeship Program, the Albanese government has lifted the living-away-from-home allowance for the first time in more than 20 years. If there's another indication of the neglect to which the former government subjected our skills and training system, it is the fact that some of these key payments were unchanged. The living-away-from-home allowance was last updated in 2003. Let's think about what that means for would-be apprentices in regional communities—the barrier that is presented. Even more shockingly, the payment that is available for employers taking on apprentices with a disability, which we updated this year, was last reviewed in 1998. That is neglect. We've now more than doubled that payment so that more Australians with a disability have the opportunity to gain skills through the earn-and-learn model that is apprenticeship.

Today I also want to highlight the landmark National Skills Agreement, a $30 billion investment with states and territories to strengthen and transform our VET system, ensuring access to high-quality, responsive and accessible education and training. After too long a period without a skills agreement, our government worked to deliver this five-year plan, providing certainty across the sector and embedding critical partnerships. The NSA represents a step change in terms of how we, the Commonwealth, work together with states and territories to deliver initiatives that will enable us to meet the skills needs of today and prepare for tomorrow.

This includes establishing TAFE centres of excellence to bring together the best facilities and the best trainers and skillsets to grow Australia's expertise in things like modern housing-construction methods, clean energy and advanced manufacturing. The opportunity to learn new skills is one that anyone at any stage can, should and must be supported in. Our government recognises the vital role that foundation skills play in building Australians' literacy, numeracy and digital skills but also in building the confidence of Australians to enter or, indeed, to re-enter the workforce. We're living in a time of great technological change, so digital skills, including how to best harness AI, are becoming more and more important. As part of the National Skills Agreement, the Albanese government is delivering $77 million in funding to states and territories to deliver adult and community education. Through our Skills for Education and Employment Program, we're also seeing the expanded delivery of free English language, literacy and numeracy and digital skills training, destigmatising approaches, with a 'no wrong door' policy so that more Australians, in every part of the country, can access these skills for good jobs and good lives.

One story, demonstrating just how important the building of foundation skills is, is the experience I had when I met Kalamkas, in Adelaide, just a couple of months ago. She's originally from Kazakhstan. In her own words, she says about the course that she took in adult and community education:

The course gave me not only useful knowledge but also confidence. I can now write letters to government departments by myself. It's a big step forward for me.

This is a powerful story but just one of thousands, which illustrates how transformative this learning and these skills can be. They build experience, boost confidence and strengthen connections to community, enabling good careers and good lives.

Importantly, our government is also investing in SEE First Nations, focusing on whole-of-community training delivery for First Nations people, by First Nations community controlled organisations working alongside training partners. SEE First Nations is helping work towards Closing the Gap targets by removing barriers to accessing culturally safe education and training and creating deeper partnerships with First Nations organisations and communities.

This week, I've outlined three key priorities that will be my focus for this term as the skills and training minister in the Albanese government: equally valuing VET, supporting lifelong learning, and strengthening the partnerships that we have already established. All of these are essential in continuing to build a skills system that's responsive to the needs of Australians and our economy, one that puts vocational education and training on an equal footing with university. Simply put, we need graduates from both sectors to meet the challenges of the coming years.

We also need to better recognise that learning isn't only for the young. Free TAFE is showing us that Australians of all ages are interested in skilling, whether it's for personal growth or in pursuit of a new career. Our government is determined to foster this approach, both through formal training but also through informal training in the workplace and in the community.

I also want to bring closer together the partnerships that our government has developed over the past three years, bringing the Commonwealth closer to our state and territory counterparts in our shared ambitions, bringing us closer to industry, to employers and to unions, to all of the stakeholders who can play a part in skilling Australia's people and in skilling Australia's future, to open the doors to opportunity and to enable every Australian to have every chance to explore all the options.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I invite the shadow minister to speak in response to the minister's statement.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That clearly tells us the current approach is not working.

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

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

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

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

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

I move:

That further statements on National Skills Week be permitted in the Federation Chamber.

Question agreed to.