Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Fawcett for his question. As I told the Senate yesterday, South Australia's training sector and, more importantly, the skills and employment market face dire consequences as a result of the new WorkReady policy that the South Australian Labor government is applying. It strips choice away from students and employers in South Australia. Guaranteeing 90 per cent of places solely to the TAFE sector is a significant backward step to the more than 70 per cent level of contestability that used to exist in South Australia.

The real concern there is that we will see two major impacts on employment—a direct impact for registered training organisations, with estimates of around 10,000 potential job losses as a result of this decision; but then, of course, a further impact throughout the rest of the economy as a result of the fact that there will be fewer skilled workers available, less choice for students and employers in where to go to access their training. This comes at the worst of all possible times for South Australia, with confirmation last week that South Australia now has the unhappy record of having the highest unemployment rate in the country.

But you should compare this, Mr President, with what has happened elsewhere in the country. In the period since the Weatherill government was re-elected, unemployment has gone down in Queensland, unemployment has gone down in New South Wales, unemployment has gone down in Victoria and unemployment has gone down in Tasmania. While all of those states have managed to get unemployment down, since the Weatherill government was re-elected unemployment has gone up in South Australia to the highest in the nation, because they are not getting the policy settings right for South Australia and this new WorkReady policy will only compound that problem and create greater employment difficulties for SA in the future. (Time expired)