HANSARD EXTRACT
| Australian Technical Colleges
(Flexibility in Achieving Australia's Skills Needs)
Amendment Bill (No.2) 2007 Second Reading |
| 15
August 2007 |
Mr HAYES
(Werriwa) (12.01 p.m.)—Once
again we are in this place with a bill before us that seeks to
extend the funding directed towards the government’s problematic
Australian technical colleges program. I say ‘once again’ because we
have been down this path before of having to extend the funds
directed to this government’s system of technical colleges. While
Labor will not be opposing the
Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in
Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2007,
we have moved a second reading amendment which contains an extensive
and damning critique of the Howard government’s handling of
vocational education and training over the past 11 years.
Those familiar with the south-west of Sydney—the Macarthur region,
where I come from, which takes in the seat of Werriwa—would
understand the importance that parents place on having access to
employment opportunities for their kids and, in particular, the
abilities and opportunities for their kids to pursue trades. Two of
our kids are tradespeople—I am very fortunate; one is an electrician
and one is a carpenter—so I know what parents think of their
children having the opportunity to undertake trade based education.
The concerns I had for my own kids about apprenticeships and
apprenticeship training and vocational education are precisely the
concerns I know people in the south-west of Sydney have when they
look at training opportunities for their kids and, further down the
track, career opportunities in chosen trades. Parents always want
better opportunities for their children than they themselves had.
That is why the Prime Minister’s unfair dismissal laws—Work Choices
in particular—have resonated to the extent that they have within
communities. That is certainly so in my community in south-western
Sydney, and I know from the industrial relations task force what
resonates in various electorates throughout this country. People are
concerned about the impact that these laws are likely to have on
their children and their children’s opportunities. Before an
objection is taken on me straying from this bill, it is fair to say
that my views on Work Choices are well known, so I will not proceed
with that any further.
In order for parents to be comfortable in the knowledge that their
children will have greater and better opportunities to pursue their
dreams than they did, most parents realise that at the base is the
importance of having a good and fundamentally sound education. While
universities and academic pursuits are very important to many, they
will not be suitable for all, and that is why the issue of
vocational education, trade based education, takes on even greater
importance. The importance of trade training is why Labor has
announced a range of policies to address skills shortages and trade
training into the future. I will outline some of those policies
later.
It is timely that I make this contribution in the debate today as it
was only Monday last that I received a response to one of two
questions that I placed on the Notice Paper to the Minister
for Vocational and Further Education about the proposed
Western Sydney
technical college. The first related to the number of students from
various parts of the greater Campbelltown and
Liverpool areas that were enrolled in the original Australian
Technical College Western Sydney. The second was about the basis of
the selection of Penrith as the location of the second
Western Sydney
technical college, which is what this bill seeks to provide funds
for. To date, I have not received a response to the first
question—although I suspect I already know the answer. I have
received a response to the second question. The response, as is the
case with most answers from this government, it is fair to say, I
found less than revealing and certainly less than satisfying.
Disappointingly, it came as no surprise to me when it was announced
in the budget in May this year that the
Western Sydney
technical college would be located in the electorate of Lindsay,
based in Penrith. It came as no surprise because Lindsay fits the
majority of the criteria for the technical colleges and their
locations—that is, it is a marginal coalition seat. The fact about
the Australian technical colleges that does not appear on the
advertisements that are now starting to flood our televisions, for
the consumption of all Australians, is that 90 per cent of the
colleges are to be located in either a coalition seat or a marginal
seat. I suppose it is a no-brainer with Lindsay, which, being a
coalition held marginal seat, has a tick in both boxes. When asked
about the reasons for locating the technical college in Lindsay, the
minister was not so bold as to admit that it was a coalition held
marginal seat and that that is the reason it got the nod. The
minister said this:
The area of Greater Penrith was selected for a second Sydney
Australian Technical College as it is a region that has demonstrated
significant skills needs, a high youth population and a significant
industry base.
At face value, that seems a quite reasonable response and basis on
which to make a decision on where to locate an educational facility.
But I got to wondering: how does that stack up when compared to
other areas in
Western Sydney? Accordingly, I thought it appropriate that we
compare Lindsay’s credentials to those of other areas of
Sydney,
such as south-west Sydney, to be sure that this was not just an
issue of pork-barrelling, that the government did not seek to
achieve a political advantage by spending multiple millions of
dollars of taxpayers’ money in another marginal seat.
When we consider the skill needs of a region, I do not believe that
Lindsay has any greater demands than other parts of
Western Sydney.
At the moment, we find ourselves in an economic position which has
resulted from a skills shortage. As a result, those with skills and
experience are generally able to find work in their chosen field.
The skills shortage was certainly affected by the government’s
decision some time ago to cut funding to TAFE colleges and
vocational education. I will come back to that.
The government’s figures estimate the skills shortage to be in the
order of 200,000 skilled workers over the next five years,
indicating that we have a significant need to train young people to
develop their skills so that they can be deployed in the labour
market. In other words, we need to take steps now to ensure that
there will not be further constraints in the economy as a result of
the exacerbation of the existing skills shortage.
Different skills pressures will arise in different labour markets as
a result of differences in local economies. Given the skills
shortage and the relative ease with which skilled workers can find
employment, I sought to look at the respective skills shortages that
had occurred in south-west Sydney. Despite the government crowing
about 30-year lows in unemployment, you need not travel too far
around the south-west of Sydney to know that the government is
trying to dupe people with a reference to aggregate statistics and
averages which are, quite frankly, far removed from local realities.
Unemployment in the south-west of
Sydney
is high; there is absolutely no denying that. It is too high, in
everyone’s view. But the Howard government has done little to
address that problem. In March this year the unemployment rate in
the electorate of Werriwa was 8.2 per cent, in Macarthur it was 6.1
per cent, in Fowler it was 8.5 per cent, in Prospect it was 7.7 per
cent and in Chifley it was 8.4 per cent. No doubt we would all agree
that these rates are high; at the very least, they are well above
the national average. By comparison, the unemployment rate for the
electorate of Lindsay in March this year was 4.8 per cent. That is
not equal to the national unemployment figure, but it is certainly
much closer to it. So, on the approximate measure of the need for
skills being one rationale for the selection of Lindsay as a
suitable place for one of these colleges, Lindsay does not stack up.
I turn to another criterion which the minister listed—that is, the
youth population of the electorate. To compare the credentials of
Lindsay with those of other parts of
Western Sydney,
I compared the number of people under the age of 15 in each of those
other electorates. For instance, in Werriwa the number of people
under the age of 15 is more than 37,500, in Macarthur it is 33,500,
in Fowler it is 29,400, in Prospect it is 28,700 and in Chifley it
is 38,000. By comparison, according to the 2006 census, the number
of people under the age of 15 in the electorate of Lindsay is just a
tad over 28,900. So, on the measure of youth population, Lindsay
ranks only slightly higher than Prospect, and below Chifley and
Werriwa by a margin of about 10,000 each. You can only say that the
government’s argument that this was another criterion for selecting
Lindsay as the appropriate place to locate an Australian technical
college is somewhat flawed.
Whilst I have not done the analysis of each of the seats in the
Penrith area in the south-west, existing industrial capacity and
growth potential would be, at best, similar to my area, which is
fast becoming an inland port with the development of two intermodal
terminals and a third being planned. It is certainly seen as a
growth centre not only for the distribution of goods for the
intermodals but also for the establishment of employment sites and
employment-generating industries based around Liverpool and
Campbelltown. I am not sure where Penrith sits in relation to that
and I am not sure whether that measure of growth would be quite the
same.
Penrith fails to meet the minister’s test on two to three measures
that he cites as reasons why the new Australian technical college
would be located there. However, on the most important measure—that
is, the position of Lindsay on the national electoral pendulum—with
a margin of just under three per cent and a Liberal sitting member,
Lindsay wins hands down. While it might not stack up on the basis of
reasonableness, it certainly stacks up on the Howard government’s
‘pork-o-meter’, as only electorates of need are to be measured by a
desperate government. I am sure that my constituency would have been
rejected by the minister, and I am sure that I will be accused of
some sort of base parochialism; but, on the basis of establishing
each of the criteria the minister sets down for the location of this
technical college in Lindsay, it is rank opportunism by a desperate
government prepared to do and spend whatever is necessary in its
approach to the next federal election.
My aim in this contribution has been to highlight the base political
motives behind the selection of the location of the Australian
technical college in Western Sydney but more than that to look at
the whole Australian technical college system, established because
of the Howard government’s failure over many years to support the
great vocational education systems that we have in this country
through TAFE. In 1997 the Howard government cut funding to the TAFE
system. Commonwealth revenues in vocational education decreased by
13 per cent from 1997 to 2000 and increased by only one per cent
between 2000 and 2004. This government’s neglect of TAFE has come at
a cost, which is now manifesting itself in the skills shortages that
we are experiencing throughout this nation. The economic constraint
that that is creating is a direct result of the actions taken by
this government back in 1997. Over the past decade the government’s
funding cuts in vocational education and training has forced the
TAFE system to turn away more than 325,000 young people. These are
young people who would have been taking advantage of the
opportunities in our resource industries, who would have been
filling various areas of opportunity in the services sector and who,
these days, see people coming to this country on 457 visas, taking
work that they should have been trained to perform over the past 11
years. This government has taken short-term decisions without
looking at the development of the Australian economy with a view to
the future.
TAFE has more than 1.2 million students and accounts for 75 per cent
of all vocational students and 85 per cent of all training hours,
yet this government ignores that fact, preferring instead to
duplicate the system through a technical college system—not add to
it, not help it to get further established or help it to train more
people but to duplicate the system. I would much prefer to see the
$1.3 million already spent on the Australian Technical College
Western Sydney, the $10 million dedicated to the construction of a
purpose-built campus and that part of the $74 million in funding
appropriated in this bill for the new
Western Sydney
technical college extended to TAFE education in
Western Sydney.
Sadly, that is not going to occur. Madam Deputy Speaker, you know
the reasons. This is all about the government’s industrial relations
drive. We saw what the government did to the university sector. We
saw what the government wanted to do for the TAFE sector. Unless
TAFE colleges were going to be compliant with the government’s
industrial relations agenda, they were not going to receive that
funding. This is just a continuation of an ideologically driven
government which is prepared to compromise on tertiary and
vocational education. (Time expired)
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