HANSARD EXTRACT
|
Skilling Australia's Workforce Bill 2005; Skilling
Australia's Workforce (Repeal and Transitional Provisions)
Bill 2005: Second Reading
|
| 14 & 15 June 2005 |
Mr HAYES
(Werriwa) (8.57 p.m.)—I
am pleased to have the opportunity to support Labor’s amendments to
the
Skilling Australia’s Workforce Bill 2005
and cognate bill. These bills, being considered as a package,
abolish the Australian National Training Authority, ANTA, and
establish a new system to grant financial assistance to states and
territories for vocational education and training. In the light of
our growing skills shortage and this government’s desperate attempt
to paper over the cracks of its serious lack of investment in
education and training by increasing skilled migration, this
package, on the face of it, may seem to be reasonable. Over the next
few years, the government will contribute $4.4 billion to fund the
states and territories—and the minister uses terms such as
‘high-quality’, ‘flexible’ and ‘responsive’ to describe the brave
new world of funding—for vocational education and training. Again,
on the face of it, it sounds reasonable. However, like always, the
devil is in the detail, and it is the detail that I am concerned
about.
Before turning my concerns to a number of
statutory conditions attached to the allocation of financial
assistance, I will provide some insight into my history and
experience with the vocational education and training sector and, in
particular, the Australian National Training Authority. It is
important that ANTA’s significant achievements are not ignored in
this debate. Considerable achievements in reform of
Australia’s vocational education and training have occurred over the
last decade and a half. The Hawke government recognised that
Australia needed to build its skilled work force if it was to
maintain its competitiveness in the global economy.
Reforms in vocational education and training
were driven by ANTA to assist with the achievement of democratised
skill recognition—a scheme of national and portable qualifications,
which are now within the reach of every worker in every occupation
and industry—the provision of learning and development pathways for
all workers from entry level to managerial and professional ranks,
equipping workers with the skills needed to remain competitive and
encouraging flexibility and responsiveness in TAFE and other VET
providers to meet the needs of industry and of the students.
Interjection
The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Hon.
IR Causley)—The
debate is interrupted. The honourable member will have the right to
continue his remarks when the debate is resumed.
15 June 2005 in continuation
Mr
HAYES
(Werriwa) (9.02 a.m.)—Before
the debate was adjourned last evening I was explaining both my
involvement in the process of reform and my involvement in the
National Training Authority, both of which are primarily based on
increasing the portability of skills between occupations and across
industries. In the 1990s I was appointed by the Australian National
Training Authority—ANTA, as it is known—to a panel to judge the
quality of training programs. My role was to identify training
initiatives which were best practice, to recognise who was doing
things well and to work out ways in which these programs and
initiatives may be extended—in other words, to work out how you
could take tried and tested and successful programs and use them to
enhance the skills and development of youth and employees to the
benefit of themselves and their employers to produce more productive
employees.
Later I became the independent chair of
Manufacturing Learning Australia. MLA was aimed at enhancing the
productivity of Australian manufacturing and the promotion of
learning across occupational groups by helping to develop and
recognise workplace skills. In this capacity I worked with all
groups involved in vocational education, from employers to unions
and from individual workers to group training companies, and of
course with the government agencies, including ANTA. With the
financial support of the Australian National Training Authority my
role with Manufacturing Learning Australia included the development
of training packages in the hydrocarbon, oil refining and chemical
industries as well as plastic, glass and cement manufacturing. The
training packages developed were aimed at recognising the skills
that were portable across a range of industries, in an effort to
reduce duplication in training, and skill development to help
achieve some cost savings through economies of scale. Although these
industries were across diverse areas it was found that commonality
existed and that consistent training packages could be developed and
introduced across many of these industries.
Similarly, in my period with the Police
Federation of Australia I was involved with a body that established
and identified common skills in areas such as public safety. Again,
while they were seemingly highly independent industries with often
vastly differing skill sets, we were able to identify a number of
common skills for police, fire and emergency services as well as the
Australian military. As a result, again with the support of ANTA, we
saw the introduction of training packages for these common skills
across the occupational groups and the formal recognition of these
skills.
I mention these experiences not simply to
indicate a degree of knowledge of the area but to lend weight to the
important work that ANTA was involved in and the initiatives and
reforms that it has assisted. The area of training and reform that I
have been associated with has had a dual purpose—namely, to increase
the quality of training and portability of qualifications while,
importantly for business, achieving economies in training costs.
This brings some context to the debate and begs the question as to
why these bills have been introduced. The Australian National
Training Authority has been successful and has achieved significant
reforms.
The abolition of ANTA from 1 July is not about
skills development, it is not about the government acting decisively
in an effort to alleviate pressures on business created by the
skills shortage and it is certainly not about a commitment to VET.
This is about ministerial control. VET has a history of being the
poor cousin in the education family. I know that ANTA has worked
tirelessly to raise the profile of VET, and now we have ANTA being
subsumed by the Department of Education, Science and Training. I
have grave concerns that VET will again be relegated to the status
of a second-class citizen in the education and training bureaucracy
as the department continues to focus on schools and universities.
However, this is not my only concern about these bills. As I said
earlier, the devil is in the detail. In this case the detail comes
in the form of the statutory conditions which must be complied with
before financial grants will be made available.
In my first speech in this place I took the
opportunity to outline my concerns about the government’s industrial
relations agenda. It would ordinarily seem odd, in speaking on bills
on vocational education and training, that my mind would turn to
industrial relations, but the statutory conditions associated with
the
Skilling Australia’s Workforce Bill 2005
and the
Skilling Australia’s Workforce (Repeal and
Transitional Provisions) Bill 2005 give me that
opportunity. Once again the government has sought to piggyback its
industrial relations agenda onto unrelated bills. Once again the
government could not resist the opportunity of using a carrot and
stick approach to force its industrial relations agenda down
people’s throats. And once again it has attached industrial
relations conditions to financial assistance grants. Under the
provisions of this legislation a condition which must be complied
with for financial assistance is the implementation of workplace
reforms. TAFE colleges will be required, under these bills, to
introduce more flexible arrangements, including AWAs where
constitutionally possible and other forms of individual contracts
where TAFE colleges are ineligible for Australian workplace
agreements. I strongly support Labor’s amendments to break the
connection that these bills seek to create between vocational
education and training and the continuation of the government’s
industrial relations agenda. Let us keep education funding and
industrial relations quite separate.
It is interesting that the government has only
recently sought to make up for the inadequate response to
Australia’s skills shortage. It is interesting because the skills
shortages that we are experiencing are not simply the product of a
buoyant economy or low unemployment, as the government would have
people believe. The skills shortages that businesses are
experiencing are the result of a lack of commitment to vocational
education and training by this government over many years and a
continual decline in business investment in training. During the
election campaign the government set about trying to hide behind
economic management and employment growth as reasons that we are
experiencing skills shortages. In fact, that was the excuse used in
the first line of the Minister for Education, Science and Training’s
media release on
26 September 2004
entitled ‘Building our trades—skilling Australia’s workforce for the
future’. In that media release the minister claimed that the
government had:
... an integrated and comprehensive plan to ensure that the value
of the trades is enhanced as a career path.
The document goes on to outline the government’s policies on
vocational education and training, including such things as the
creation of new training colleges, the provision of new learning
scholarships, the establishment of a network of industry careers
advisers and, of course, the provision of an $800 tool kit for
apprentices. At no time did it make mention of the abolition of the
Australian National Training Authority and at no time did it make
mention of financial assistance being tied to the extension of
workplace reforms and the introduction of Australian workplace
agreements within the TAFE system. In fact, the first time this plan
was mentioned was when the
Howard government ministry was sworn in on 22 October 2004. I find
it interesting that the plan that the Minister for Vocational and
Technical Education in his second reading speech referred to as ‘the
most significant piece of legislation for vocational and technical
education in the past 15 years’ did not rate a mention until well
after the election. It did not rate a mention until the government
realised that the $800 tool kit for apprentices was not going to
solve the skills crisis. It did not rate a mention until the
government realised that it could attach its industrial relations
agenda to yet another bill providing financial assistance in an area
that has been overlooked for funding for quite some period—an area
that has been desperately in need of financial assistance.
What is more surprising is that the
announcement of such a significant change was made without any
consultation. In fact, during Senate estimates hearings last year,
the Department of Education, Science and Training even admitted that
it did not have a role in the decision to scrap the Australian
National Training Authority. As
Pat
Forward, the Australian Education Union’s TAFE secretary, said:
It’s perplexing that people who have been at the forefront of
vocational education for 15 years—state education departments, TAFEs,
unions, small business—weren’t involved in these decisions.
I also find it particularly interesting that, in the most
significant change that vocational education and training has seen
in 15 years, we now see the needs of students seemingly taking the
back seat.
In my experience with the development of
training systems, the focus has been on the benefit to those being
trained. I do not deny that the initiatives I have personally been
associated with have resulted in cost savings, but first and
foremost they have resulted in training improvements. They have been
driven by a business need—a need to have high-quality training in
order to produce better, more adaptable and more productive
employees. However, the most significant change in vocational
education and training in the last 15 years has turned this approach
on its head. I do not deny that the needs of business are an
important consideration. Any change and reform to education and
training should not be driven solely by a desire for a quick-fix,
enterprise-specific solution. The considerations of business should
be seen in the light of having well-trained, high-quality and highly
skilled employees well into the future.
I absolutely want more training places for
young people. In my electorate, the second largest occupational
grouping is tradespeople and those in trade related industries.
There are thousands of tradespeople in Werriwa. In fact, two of them
are my sons—one an electrician and the other a carpenter. I am
completely indebted to those TAFE teachers, themselves highly
skilled tradespersons, who have educated and mentored my sons. And
there are plenty of other people in Werriwa, both at school and just
out of school, who would like nothing more than the opportunity to
attend TAFE and gain trade qualifications. They want to become
tradespeople. They are among the 270,000 people who have missed out
on TAFE positions since 1998. However, there is one thing they do
not want—that is, to study and work hard to obtain their
qualification only to find out in a couple of years time that,
because theirs is one of the fast-tracked, enterprise-specific
qualifications, it is somehow considered to be of lesser quality
than those qualifications obtained in a more staged and traditional
manner.
People in my electorate are finding it
increasingly difficult to believe that everything is fine on the
economic horizon. In the main, they have yet to significantly share
in and experience the great job growth that the government trumpets
almost daily. The unemployment rate in Werriwa remains just below
seven per cent and youth unemployment remains around 24 per cent. My
constituents want more training positions, but they do not want to
see training places and a curriculum drafted specifically for a
quick fix to an immediate enterprise condition. I am sure that all
members of this House want an extension of training opportunities. I
certainly want them for my constituents. People want the skills
shortage addressed—businesses want it addressed, the government
wants it addressed, and those who have missed out on TAFE places due
to funding cuts want it addressed so they can have the opportunity
to fully participate in the jobs market.
Let us increase funding to vocational education
and training. Let us increase the number of people who will be able
to gain skills and qualifications that allow them to seek and find
employment. Let us increase the number of people with relevant,
high-quality skills that will last them well into the future. Let us
not get caught up in the trap of trying to cut corners to overcome
an immediate skills shortage. If we are going to do it, let us do it
right. Let us build the skilled work force that
Australia needs to participate in a global economy, and let us do it
without attaching industrial relations reforms to measures in a bid
to force an ideologically driven agenda on people.
I support the extension of funding for
vocational education and training and my constituents support that
extension. But, more importantly, I support Labor’s commitment to
remove the connection between education funding and the government’s
industrial relations agenda. The government should not be seeking
every opportunity to hold to ransom key expenditure areas,
especially those previously deprived of funding, in a bid to prop up
its industrial relations agenda.
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