Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in favour of the Labor Party’s amendments to the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill 2006. For 10 long years the Howard government has failed to provide young Australians with the training they need to get a decent job. For 10 long years the Howard government has failed to invest in the skills Australia needs to raise productivity and sustain economic growth. For 10 long years the Howard government has continued to reduce the overall percentage of the federal budget spent on vocational education and training, and it stands condemned for the skills crisis it has created. Neglecting Australia’s skills development is an act of gross incompetence by the Howard government that will hurt the Australian economy and hurt it hard.

A more appropriate name for this bill would be the Australia Technical Colleges (Sorry, We Buggered up the Costings on the First Act) Amendment Bill 2006, because all it does is bring funding forward for the proposed Australian technical colleges from 2008-09 to 2006-07. This bill does not create one additional training place or apprenticeship or even increase the level of investment in Australia’s skills base over the forward estimates by one cent. All this bill does is allow the Howard government the opportunity to address the fact that it botched the costings in the original act. The skills shortage Australia faces is the biggest barrier to future economic growth and improved productivity, but the Howard government has botched its one and only policy response to this problem.

But do not take my word for it. In the Australian Industry Group’s overview of the Howard government’s last budget, Heather Ridout had this to say:

... it is disappointing that more progress has not been made on the big nation-building goals of skills and innovation.

                 …         …         …

... investments in skills, innovation and infrastructure are required to build the competitiveness of Australian business and to assist in rebalancing the economy as the current minerals boom begins to fade.

Everybody knows that Australia’s economic prosperity will not continue without investment in skills; everybody knows that we must invest in Australian skills through strong and effective education and training programs; and everybody knows that the Howard government’s record in addressing this vital public policy need is nothing short of a disgrace.

Under the Howard government, Australia is the only developed country in the world to reduce public investment in TAFEs and universities over the last decade. Public investment in our TAFEs and universities by the Howard government has fallen eight per cent since 1995. The average public investment in postsecondary education for the rest of the industrialised world over that time shared an increase of 38 per cent. We are the only country in the OECD where public expenditure on postsecondary education in universities and TAFEs has been falling. To think that government members and senators have the hide to come into this parliament and bang on about what a wonderful job the Howard government is doing! This is not just a disgrace for the Howard government; it is a tragedy for Australia and, unless we dedicate a greater effort and priority to learning, we will continue to fall behind the rest of the world.

But the focus and investment has to be genuine, constructive and engaging. It should not be about simply playing politics, which sadly is what the Howard government is guilty of with these technical colleges. It appears that the main reason for the Howard government establishing these colleges is to force workers into Australian workplace agreements. Because the Howard government is obsessed with smashing unions, it has created these greenfield sites to prevent collective bargaining. Why else is it that the only reference to an industrial instrument in the entire summary of employment arrangements for Australian technical colleges is the reference to individual contracts? The Howard government will set up these colleges and effectively force teachers to enter into Australian workplace agreements, whether or not they want to. So much for freedom of choice! At the Howard government’s insistence, all staff employed at an Australian technical college must be offered an individual contract. If a local college does not want to implement the government’s extreme industrial relations agenda then it will be cut off from the program.

The minister has failed to explain what enforcing an extreme industrial relations agenda has to do with training our future tradespeople. If it is not to ideologically pursue Australian workplace agreements, why not just provide the funding to institutions already in place, which are mainly TAFE colleges? It could be that, if the Howard government simply invested what it should in the TAFE system, it would not make for nearly as effective photo opportunities for marginal backbenchers.

When the Prime Minister announced the creation of the Australian technical colleges in his speech on 24 September 2004, he said that they would be ‘the centrepiece of our drive to tackle skills shortages and to revolutionise vocational education and training throughout Australia’. Let us examine this so-called revolutionary centrepiece against the numbers. At best, when all of these colleges are up and running at full capacity, which will not be until around 2010, they will produce approximately 7,500 tradespeople a year. If we put that figure into perspective, 7,500 students represent only two per cent of all Australian students in years 11 and 12. That is 20-odd colleges to cater for only two per cent of the relevant student population.

There is another figure we can compare this so-called revolutionary centrepiece to. According to the Howard government’s own Department of Education, Science and Training, 34,200 young Australians were turned away from TAFE in 2005 alone and 34,100 were turned away in 2004—the year of the Prime Minister’s policy speech—and yet the Howard government’s so-called revolutionary response to turning away 34,000 young Australians from TAFE in one year alone was to establish a parallel system of colleges that may produce 7,500 tradespeople by around 2010. To make matters worse, according to figures from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research, 33,500 new apprentices quit their courses in the September 2005 quarter while only 33,100 completed them. Far from being revolutionary, this is a totally inadequate response to a crisis which everyone acknowledges is imposing severe constraints on our future economic capacity.

It seems amazing to me that the government can find the funds to create a parallel system of TAFE colleges when we know that for years there has been a huge underspend in the technical and vocational education area, particularly on enabling our TAFE system to meet the unmet demand. Wouldn’t this money be better spent on projects that are already working on the ground instead of trying to establish an alternative, parallel TAFE system? After 10 long years, you would think the Howard government would have had the time to develop a more detailed plan than this to address Australia’s skills needs. It appears to me that it is making it up as it goes. This is policy on the run—just a paragraph in a campaign speech for the Prime Minister with no real planning for our future.

Australia deserves better than this. That is why the Australian Labor Party have already released a series of policy initiatives to give Australia’s skills base the investment it deserves. Last September Kim Beazley put out Labor’s skills blueprint. Labor have announced that we would overhaul the failed new apprentices scheme, and we will not import foreign apprentices while Aussie kids are being turned away from training. Labor have also announced that we will return fairness to IR laws and the shop floor.

Labor knows that action must be taken now to encourage people to complete their apprenticeships. That is why Labor will invest $170 million to abolish up-front TAFE fees and create a trade completion bonus of $2,000 per apprentice. This bonus will encourage more apprentices to complete their training in the traditional trades by paying them $1,000 halfway through their training and a further $1,000 at the completion of their apprenticeship. If this policy is successful in only halving the current drop-out rate, it will put an extra 10,000 qualified tradespeople into our workforce each and every year—far more than the Australian technical colleges will produce. Unfortunately, by contrast, we have a government that is incapable of implementing the one policy it has.

But Mr Stuart Henry, the member for Hasluck, does not seem to think so. In his speech in the second reading debate on this bill in the other place on 21 June 2006, he had this to say:

This bill is sheer good news. It does not affect the overall budget of $343.6 million for the program; it merely brings forward funding which had been allocated to the 2008-09 financial year so that it can be available in 2006-07.

So according to the member for Hasluck it is good news that the Howard government would introduce a bill into parliament about training that contains no additional funding—none at all! The member for Hasluck is easily pleased. The source of the member for Hasluck’s delight might better be found later in his speech when he said:

... in my own electorate the Australian technical college Perth South is set to commence in February 2007 and proposes to operate as a multicampus, non-government senior secondary college in Maddington and Armadale with a satellite campus based in Rockingham. My colleague the member for Canning and I were very pleased to be present for the signing of the Perth South ATC funding agreement by the Minister for Vocational and Technical Education, the Hon. Gary Hardgrave, at the ATC site in Maddington earlier this month—a great occasion for the local community.

I am sure I will see the photo of this event in his next newsletter. You would think from the member for Hasluck’s rapture that this college will be the only training centre in the region. It is not. The member for Hasluck’s photo opportunity buddy, the member for Canning, did make such claims in his second reading debate speech on this bill in the other place on 15 June. In that speech, the member for Canning claimed:

... the industrial strip in the Kwinana region is calling out for a technical college in that area ...

Mr Randall appears to be completely unaware that the Howard government’s Perth South Australian Technical College will overlap the area covered by Challenger TAFE.

Challenger TAFE has 11 industry training centres, including the WA Applied Engineering and Shipbuilding Training Centre and the WA Wool Technology Training Centre, with campuses and centres at Fremantle, Henderson, Murdoch, Peel, Rockingham, Heathcote Cultural Centre and Kwinana. The centres are closely aligned to the needs of industry. They are focused on targeting their training and employment services for the wider community, including for diverse and in many instances disadvantaged groups. Challenger TAFE’s Peel Campus is located on the site of Western Australia’s first co-located school, TAFE and university campus, in Mandurah. Challenger TAFE offers skills training in over 140 careers, ranging from aquaculture to welding. And yet the Howard government has decided that it needs to create a separate Australian technical college that duplicates some of the functions of Challenger TAFE and overlaps its geographic area.

I am baffled as to why the Howard government would want to set up an institution in competition to Challenger TAFE, which is an excellent institution. It must be that the Howard government has no respect for the good work that Challenger TAFE does. I am sure that if the Howard government provided the funding for the Perth South Australian Technical College to the Challenger TAFE it would not make for as good a photo opportunity. The headline would only read ‘Howard government provides long overdue investment to TAFE to meet unmet demand’, which does not make for nearly as good propaganda.

If we look at the comments made by Mr Don Randall, the member for Canning, in his speech in the second reading debate on this bill in the other place on 15 June, we can get an appreciation of the government’s logic in introducing this bill. In that speech Mr Randall made the bold claim:

The 24 Australian technical colleges will concentrate on skills, not alternative type arrangements such as we cop in the TAFEs now—aromatherapy, flower arranging and transcendental meditation courses.

Now, I searched through the Challenger TAFE website and I could not find a single reference to transcendental meditation courses. What I found were references to certificates courses in aluminium fabrication, electrotechnology and wool classing. To be fair to the member for Canning—and I must be fair—I did find a reference to flower arranging in Challenger TAFE’s certificate in floristry course. But if Mr Randall wants to denigrate the small business owners who struggle to make a living for their families as florists in his electorate—hardworking people like Barbara who runs Barbara for Flowers in the suburb of Byford in the heart of his electorate—then be it on his head. What a tool! Mr Randall further disgraced himself by claiming:

As a result of the states having dropped the ball on training in their TAFEs, the federal government has had to fill the vacuum. The 24 Australian technical colleges will fill this vacuum in training.

As I explained earlier, 34,200 does not go into 7,500. I have tried many times but I cannot make it go in. If the member for Canning honestly believes that the 7,500 tradespeople these colleges will produce in 2010 in any way makes up for the 34,200 young Australians that were turned away from TAFE last year alone, then I suggest that the only vacuum is the one inside the member for Canning’s head. But wait, there is more. The member for Canning finally stuffed his other foot into his mouth when he said:

… teachers in the local TAFEs in my area tell me that there are more teachers and more administrators in the TAFEs than there are students …

and, wait for it—

… they get paid exorbitant wages and generally end up with a car …

What an absolute drongo! If it is too many staff getting paid too much money that the member for Canning is worried about then I am sure the Howard government’s insistence on the use of AWAs will ensure that the few teachers in these new colleges will be paid very poor wages. The travesty is that pork chops like the member for Canning were ever allowed near a classroom. At least in the parliament he is not doing damage—