Mark Bishop (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The incorporated speech read as follows—

Mr Acting Deputy President, this Bill seeks to do one simple thing:

Appropriate $74.7 million to establish three new Australian Technical Colleges.

Since the Government has the numbers in this place, it’s a fait accompli.

Nevertheless, the policy and politics on which this program is based are another indication of how the Howard Government has lost its way.

The need for fresh investment in technical training in Australia is chronic.

That’s indicated in convincing detail in Labor’s policy paper:

New Directions for Vocational Education and Training, released last May.

The economic imperatives are obvious to anyone.

Especially to employers at this time, when demand for skilled labour is going through the roof.

At the same time, we’ve young people in large numbers not completing Year 12.

It’s estimated that in 2006:

540,000 young Australians aged 16-24 were not engaged full time in work or learning.

That’s a disgraceful waste when skilled labour is so scarce.

So completion rates must be improved.

To do that, education and training must be made more relevant.

The social and economic consequences of not doing so are dramatic.

The detail’s set out in Labor’s policy paper, so I shan’t elaborate.

Except to note that almost nothing is being done about it.

And that includes this Bill.

That’s because the Howard Government, as it has done in so many areas, including:

• Education
• Heath, and
• Aboriginal Affairs

has savagely cut budgets year after year.

Then—of course—as an election nears, the purse strings are cut and “new” policies begin to flow.

They’re from a Born Again government suddenly realising the errors of its doctrinaire ways over the past 11 years.

Is it any wonder the electorate is totally cynical?

This Bill, providing $74 million for technical education, is part of this last-minute panic.

Just like the urgent Murray-Darling water panic.

Just like the Mersey hospital panic in Tasmania last week.

This is all part of the new policy on federalism – which I’ll turn to later.

Between 1997 and 2000, the Howard Government cut funding for technical education by 13 per cent.

Since then it’s only increased by one per cent.

It’s estimated that since 1998, 325,000 potential TAFE students have been turned away from entry.

That’s scandalous.

The conservative, self-satisfied attitude of the Howard Government places no premium on education.

Is it any wonder we’re facing the crisis of a national skills shortage?

Let me turn now to the Australian Technical Colleges program, to which this Bill appropriates further funding.

In 2004 the Howard Government—again recognising the folly of its funding cuts in the face of skill shortages—announced it would create 24 new technical colleges across Australia.

These colleges were to be located in industrial growth areas.

That’s code for areas of political interest to the Government’s electoral ambitions.

So the new colleges have been set down for, Northern Perth, Southern Perth, Queanbeyan (in the marginal electorate of Eden Monaro), ditto Northern Tasmania, Western Sydney, Northern Adelaide and so on and on the list goes.

Twenty one of these colleges are now operating and this Bill will bring the total to 28.

Eventually, 8400 students will be enrolled to complete the final two years of school while working as apprentices.

Currently, 21 are operational with 1800 students attending.

That’s way below the target.

Normally, one would expect any added investment in education to be welcomed with great acclaim.

The chronic need in technical training I’ve already referred to.

But in this case—just as with the Mersey hospital—it makes no sense at all.

The simple failure is that all Australian states have technical education programs of rapidly increasing size and quality.

This Howard Government adventure is nothing but duplication.

Moreover, it’s expensive duplication.

An estimate is that the cost per student of this model is $175,000 per head.

So question becomes:

Why has the Prime Minister embarked on this crazy program, knowing there’s an existing system of technical education, growing in quality and competence?

The answer is simple:

The complete failure of the Howard Government to work with the states, which have the constitutional authority.

One might ask: why haven’t the states co-operated?

Again the answer is simple.

The program mandates the application of Australian Workplace Agreements for all staff.

The program’s just another Trojan horse for the application of the Howard Government’s ideological approach to the creation of a labour market as contained in its “Workchoices” legislation.

That’s the legislation now rejected by the electorate, as the Government now realises, too late.

This ATC program is fatally flawed.

It’s grossly expensive and it’s a complete duplication.

The fact that it’s managed within the community with industry participation may be an attraction.

But when compared with:

Measures of value-for-money, and

The need for greater systemic planning and co-ordination, that matters little.

One can only wonder at the boost technical training would receive if this budget were dedicated to the state-based systems.

The Prime Minister’s clearly frustrated at his failure to secure state agreement.

It’s where the Commonwealth lacks the constitutional power in our federal system.

That’s despite the repeated photo opportunities—invariably after COAG—showing great displays of harmony and bonhomie.

But state support has always been forthcoming.

So it’s wrong of the Prime Minister to blame the states for his own shortcomings.

Including on educational issues, such as the need for national curricula.

The states, sensibly, detect political purpose, self-promotion and inefficiency.

They’re naturally suspicious of political dogma and crude opportunism.

In this case, the Trojan horse of Workchoices.

Sadly it’s the important issues of education and health which are being used as wedges of power and politics.

This program and this Bill are but further examples.

Let me turn to the recent report by ANAO on this Program and its management by the Department of Education and Training.

I regret to say the ANAO report struggles, as it must, to deal with the real issues with this ATC program.

That’s because the policy is given.

And it’s not the role of the ANAO to be critical of that policy, no matter how stupid and illogical it might be.

It is possible, however, to read between the lines because all the inferences of political imperative are writ large …

Though disguised in top-class bureaucratese.

Nowhere is the political imperative more obvious than in the speed with which this program was established.

The ex-minister (as he is now), was hardly one for niceties, such as the process and detail necessary to establish such a program from scratch.

Knowing the reputation of that minister serves only to add to our suspicion.

As we know he’s no longer a minister.

And that’s quite a feat in the Howard Government.

May I suggest, the ANAO’s comment, that:

“Such ventures might normally be expected to take several years rather than 18 months” is code for concern that lots of corners were cut.

Indeed they were.

Later audits undertaken, when the political imperative has subsided, might see a more critical and forensic examination of such shortcomings.

The ANAO, however, is very polite.

For example, the lack of cooperation with state governments, resulting in this duplication, is expressed in a recommendation that:

“DEST develop and implement an approach for the Australian Technical Colleges to share better practice and approaches to training.”

In other words,

DEST should co-operate with the states.

Well they won’t and they can’t.

That’s because the Howard Government wants to take over the field and have its own way.

Canberra knows better.

DEST interpreted this narrowly as involving only the ATC system, with reference only to sharing of curriculum and program development between themselves.

All of which is already available in the states, in many new and innovative Vocational Education Training programs.

The development by each ATC of its own curriculum referred to at paragraph 2.16, quote

“For the same small number of trades”

is particularly wasteful.

This is indeed a very gentle ANAO report.

But there are plenty of other clues about problems which are worth noting.

For example, concern for the capacity of commercial organisations, unfamiliar with Commonwealth tendering and contracting policy, to comply with financial agreements.

In other words, the risks were not properly taken into consideration, so what improprieties were there?

There’s also some understated concerns at capital investment being inappropriate.

Especially in property of third parties without protection of the Commonwealth interest.

It shows a failure to assess the supply of educational facilities with respect to existing state resources.

That’s what happens with wasteful duplication.

And that’s another sign of impetuosity and political desperation.

Reading between the lines of this ANAO report, I suspect there’s much more to be revealed.

Apart from the obvious matters I’ve referred to already:

Financial management

Governance, and

Risk assessment are all major concerns.

But not dealt with adequately in any detail.

Perhaps we’ll never know.

That’s because it’s Labor policy that these extravagant new colleges be transferred to the states.

We can’t abide waste and we’re not interested in the policies of division and competition for power.