Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill 2006. This bill provides for the establishment and operation of 25 Australian technical colleges, which of course was the government’s election response to Australia’s skills crisis. The bill before the chamber amends the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Act 2005 to bring forward funding for the proposed 25 colleges from 2008-09 to 2006-07, within the same funding total for the quadrennium, and also to enable the Minister for Vocational and Technical Education to redistribute funds between particular years by regulation rather than by legislative amendment. The colleges are intended to provide high-quality tuition in both academic and vocational education for students in years 11 and 12. They are intended to be located in regions with skills needs, with a high youth population and that are supported by a significant industry base.

The government promised at the last election to build the 25 colleges to provide school based apprenticeship courses for 7,500 students. That is about 300 students to be enrolled in each college, and yet we are in the second half of 2006 and only five colleges are open for business—one of which is an existing school—enrolling a total of 350 students, which is hardly 300 in each college. One hundred and eighty-five of those students are at the existing school. The last of these schools, in northern Tasmania, commenced operations on 31 July 2006.

As I said, this is the government’s response to date to meeting the Prime Minister’s commitment during the election campaign, and I want to quote from the Prime Minister’s election campaign speech. He said that ATCs are ‘the centrepiece of our drive to tackle skills shortages and to revolutionise vocational education and training throughout Australia’. Some revolution! It is clear that this bill exemplifies the Howard government’s incompetence and its blind commitment to ideology over genuine educational need.

The opposition will not stand in the way of releasing urgently needed funding for students and for that reason we will support the bill. But, frankly, the government deserves to be condemned for its performance, and I foreshadow the second reading amendment that has been circulated in my name. The Howard government has been in office for 10 long years. Its legacy is a crisis in providing the skills the nation needs for ongoing productivity, low inflation and prosperity. The Howard government’s legacy is a failure to train Australians.

The Australian Industry Group estimates that Australia needs an extra 100,000 skilled workers. The five colleges that the Howard government has thus far produced and are now in operation will produce 350 additional tradespeople in four or five years at best. Almost two-thirds of employers surveyed by the AiG report that they have experienced difficulties in securing employees in the trades, compared with around 50 per cent of employers having difficulties in recruiting technicians, paraprofessionals and engineering professionals. Almost three-quarters of employers surveyed by the group report that an inability to secure skilled staff will be a barrier to their companies’ success. Eighty-five per cent of employers surveyed wanted help to reverse the skills shortage, yet hardly any will be helped by this bill and none will be helped until 2010 at the earliest. The government stands condemned for its failure to provide the training opportunities for Australians to get the skills they need and the skills our nation needs.

The Howard government also stands condemned for its refusal to give priority to funding vocational education and training. This year’s budget papers report that funding for vocational education in the budget for 2005-06 was $1.543 million. That is less than one per cent of total budget expenses—0.75 per cent. I will just put that in context: this is at a time when we have had numerous warnings by the Reserve Bank of capacity constraints in our economy, not only in infrastructure but in the lack of skilled workers, and when employers have continued to indicate their concerns about skilled labour supply. This government presides over a long-term decline in budget expenditure on vocational education. Commonwealth funding for vocational education is estimated to be $1.681 million by 2009-10. That is an increase on average of 2.2 per cent a year, which is well less than today’s inflation rate. In 2009-10 the proportion of the budget spent on vocational education will have declined to 0.67 per cent. This lack of investment reveals the government’s complacency and its indifference to skills training.

As I previously mentioned, in its election campaign the government promised 25 Australian technical colleges, enrolling 7,500 students. What do we have today instead? We have five colleges in operation, enrolling around 350 students in total; and, of these, 220 are enrolled in just one college in Port Macquarie, New South Wales—in the Deputy Prime Minister’s electorate. And this college already existed; it is St Joseph’s Vocational College, Port Macquarie. It is a highly successful school, providing education, training and employment opportunities for many young people in the area. The fact is that this college has been providing this training for many years now without being dubbed an Australian technical college. Consider for a moment the difference between what the government has actually delivered and what it said it would deliver. Twenty-five colleges enrolling 7,500 students was the promise; instead we have five colleges enrolling 350 students, of which the vast majority were enrolled in an already existing school.

We commend St Joseph’s and other schools that are involved in this, and we support St Joseph’s extension under this scheme. But the fact is that around 185 of the 220 currently enrolled students were already at the college last year; so more than two-thirds of the current enrolments in ATCs across the nation are in just one school in Port Macquarie. Not too far from Port Macquarie is a government high school in Ballina, New South Wales. This school is also a high-quality institution, working hard for its students and its community in the same way that St Joseph’s College has in Port Macquarie. Ballina High School won the 2004 national training award for VET in Schools. The school developed an application for funding under the ATC program to extend its services, analogous to what has occurred at St Joseph’s. It proposed to do this in partnership with local industry and with the Northern Institute of TAFE, which has also received national recognition for quality training; it won the 2004 national training provider of the year award.

So the school that wins the national training award for VET in Schools and the TAFE that wins the national training provider of the year award applied for Australian technical colleges funding. And what did the government do? The school was unsuccessful in its application. Why? Was it because the training was not good enough? No. Was it because the TAFE provider did not have a demonstrated record? No. Was it because there was a lack of industry support? No. The reason this school was denied funding is because it is unable to meet the Howard government’s industrial relations requirements.

The bill before the chamber does not mention these requirements. The guidelines for funding that underlie it, however, make the government’s intentions clear: Australian technical colleges must:

... offer the option of an Australian Workplace Agreement to all staff in accordance with the Workplace Relations Act 1996, which will provide rewards linked to excellent performance, including performance pay.

So the bill before the chamber is as much about industrial relations as it is about education, training or skills development. The outcome of this policy is that the bulk of Australian students in our public schools have been denied the opportunity to benefit from the ATC program.

The minister has announced 22 successful ATC proposals. Of these only two are stand-alone government schools, and one other is in a consortium with a Catholic school. Twenty of the 22 announced ATCs involve existing non-government schools or new independent schools. All of these colleges receive federal and state general recurrent funding for their ongoing operation. Some of the successful colleges have been flexible in meeting the industrial relations requirements. Some of them have been creative in meeting these requirements, and it is a pity that their creative energies have had to be directed to meeting these complex and onerous industrial relations requirements, rather than that effort being directed to developing education and training programs for their students. These schools will find they have to meet state curriculum and teacher registration requirements, including for non-vocational curriculum. They will need to charge their students fees, presumably at a reasonably high level, to provide the resources needed for a quality vocational and academic education at the expensive senior secondary level.

Setting up a new school, let alone a specialised vocational college, is not for the faint-hearted or for the inexperienced. We hope they can acquire these skills soon, for their students’ sake. What we do not want to see—and what appears to be fostered by the government—is a destructive competition for students, teachers and resources with other government and non-government schools. Some of the state governments have taken action to do something about the Howard government’s patent indifference to the students in their public schools. The New South Wales government has announced it will provide funding for a number of trades schools, including in some of the schools that the Howard government has refused to support. The Victorian government has announced that it plans to establish technical education centres to provide preapprenticeship and first-year apprenticeship training to students in years 10 to 12.

Minister Hardgrave, unfortunately, has not been backward in criticising these schools or in insulting the teachers and students in those schools. On 3 August the minister put out three media releases ‘announcing’ different aspects of the ATC program. First there was the announcement of a funding agreement for an ATC in Illawarra based at Wollongong but with shopfronts in Moss Vale and Nowra. This college will be established as a non-government school. Then there was the release about the starting of refurbishments at the North Brisbane ATC in Scarborough. This was more in the nature of a ‘re-announcement’, as the funding agreement was first announced in February this year. Again, this school will be a non-government school with the Scarborough campus located at the Southern Cross Catholic College. The final release on 3 August trumpeted that ATCs are ‘in a league of their own’, but all that could be announced was that ‘negotiations were in progress’ for colleges in Queanbeyan, Dubbo and Ballina. We could forgive a desperate minister for pushing a media story about negotiations, but we cannot forgive the disgraceful message to the students of the Queanbeyan trade school in New South Wales. The minister had the gall to describe the school as ‘second rate’ in his media release. What an extraordinary message for the minister responsible for training to send to the students and teachers at this school!

Queanbeyan High School will be the site of one of the 10 trade schools to be established by the New South Wales government. The Canberra Chronicle reported on 1 August:

The Queanbeyan Trade School will involve a partnership between Queanbeyan and Karabar high schools and Queanbeyan TAFE, and will specialise in metal and engineering and automotive trades. The new trade school will have a muti-purpose trade workshop, fitted with industry-standard equipment …

It goes on to report that the trade school will benefit from strong industry and community support, which will also link students with employers who will provide them with on-the-job experience. This is a school that should be supported, not subjected to statements from a minister of the Crown that the school is second rate.

Instead of national collaboration and the fostering of a shared responsibility for meeting the nation’s skills needs, we have a program that has promoted bickering, put-downs and a wasteful use of scarce resources. This is what the government’s technical colleges program has come to: a failure to plan properly, an inability to move away from an extreme industrial relations ideology and a putting-down of those who are not prepared to cooperate with a flawed policy agenda.

The minister is also very defensive about the lack of progress—as you would be when you look at the numbers compared to the election promise—and we have noticed through the Senate estimates a lack of clarity and helpfulness in providing information about that progress. I have been asking detailed questions at estimates hearings for over a year on how these colleges are operating. What we have met with from the government is stony silence on how the colleges are performing. For example, some of the questions asked by me and by other Labor senators were: how much funding is each college receiving; will this funding be adequate to provide high-quality senior secondary schooling and vocational training; what qualifications will the students graduate with; and how many of the expected enrolments will be additional to the current provision in existing schools? We have also been asking a range of questions about when we will see a number of these colleges opened. Unfortunately, many of the answers provided so far have focused much more on what the government hopes to achieve rather than what has actually been achieved.

As I said at the outset, the bill seeks to bring forward funding from 2008 and 2009. Funding for 2006 is increased by $62 million and for 2007 by $26 million. These increases are offset by the reduction in the allocations for the outer years—that is, after the next election—so that the funding for the quadrennium is unchanged at $343.6 million. The explanatory memorandum states that this change, or rephasing forward, of some of the funding reflects the ‘significant progress that has been made in establishing the colleges’. Frankly, if that is right, we are going to have to have a rush of activity in the months ahead.

The reality is that at the end of May this year $185 million had been committed to ATCs but only $18 million had been spent, out of a total budget of $343 million. If the money is not being spent that is usually a pretty good sign that the policy is not being delivered. Therefore, it is no wonder that the government is reluctant to provide information about the funding, operation and status of the proposed colleges. This country needs a systematic approach to promoting trades, science and technology education.

In stark contrast with the Howard government, Labor would work with states and territories to implement these changes in secondary schooling for the benefit of young Australians. Labor’s Skills and Schools Blueprint, released in September last year, outlines our program for improving the skills training in our schools. We will offer young people better choices by teaching trades, technology and science in first-class facilities. We will establish a Trades in Schools scheme to double the number of school based apprenticeships in areas of skills shortage and provide extra funding per place. We will establish specialist schools for the senior years of schooling in areas such as trades, technology and science and establish a ‘trades taster’ program so that years 9 and 10 students can experience a range of trade options which could also lead to pre-apprenticeship programs.

We will increase the number of young Australians completing apprenticeships, through incentives such as the $800 per year skills account which would abolish up-front TAFE fees. This money, which could be paid directly into a skills account for every traditional trade apprentice, could be spent on TAFE fees, textbooks or materials. We have also outlined a $2,000 trade completion bonus under which traditional apprentices would receive a $1,000 payment halfway through their training and a further $1,000 payment at the completion of their apprenticeship. These are practical and real reforms of the kind we need to develop Australian skills. The fact is that under this government, despite warnings not just from the Reserve Bank but also from industry and employers over many years, there has been a comprehensive lack of strategy, focus and priority given to training young Australians. Instead we have seen from this government an over-reliance on skilled migration. The legacy of this government is a failure to train Australians. We are experiencing a skills shortage now and all this government has to offer is an incompletely delivered and belated Australian technical college policy.

Nevertheless, given the lack of focus on technical and vocational training in this country, Labor will support the bill. We do want students to benefit from the program, despite our misgivings about the government’s ability to deliver this and its appalling record so far. However, this government should be held to account for its failure to train Australians. It should be held to account for presiding over a skills crisis in this country and it should be held to account for its failure to meet its responsibilities as the national government. I move Labor’s second reading amendment which has been circulated in my name:

At the end of the motion, add;

        “but the Senate condemns the Government for:

        (a)     creating a skills crisis during their 10-long years in office;

       (b)     its continued failure to provide the necessary opportunities for Australians to get the training they need to get a decent job and meet the skills needs of the economy;

        (c)     reducing the overall percentage of the Federal Budget spent on vocational education and training, and allowing this percentage of spending to further decline over the forward estimates period;

       (d)     its incompetent handling of the Australian Technical Colleges initiative as evidenced by only five out of twenty five colleges being open for business, enrolling fewer than 350 students;

        (e)     failing to be open and accountable about the operations of Australian Technical Colleges, including details of extra student enrolments, funding levels for the individual colleges, course structures and programs;

        (f)     denying local communities their promised Australian Technical College because of their ideological industrial relations requirements; and

       (g)     failing to provide enough extra skills training so that Australia can meet the expected shortfall of 100 000 skilled workers by 2010”.