Apprenticeships
Transcript
Ms WARE (Hughes) (12:28): I thank the member for Hunter for bringing this motion, because it gives me an opportunity to say to the member for Hunter that I am similarly very proud of him—that he went through the vocational education training sector. I'm similarly very supportive of that sector, as it is the sector that builds Australia. I have said in this place a couple of times how proud I am of my first-born son, who has just commenced a plumbing apprenticeship. I am certainly very supportive of the skills and training sector.
The issue that I have, though, with the government's approach to this sector is that it only ever talks about TAFE. We hear, 'fee-free TAFE', and for the reasons I'm going to set out shortly, the fee-free TAFE legislation is simply not going to do what it was designed to do, because, yet again, Labor loves the big slogan, the big headline, 'It's all going to be free.' But over and over again, their delivery on policy demonstrates that they cannot deliver that that they proclaim so loudly through a megaphone. Data released by the National Centre for Vocational Education and Research has confirmed that, instead of trending up, as we were under the former coalition government, Australia has lost over 80,000 apprentices and trainees from the national training pipeline since the Albanese Labor government took office. Why is it that the government will only fund TAFE? Why do we just hear, 'TAFE, TAFE, TAFE, TAFE, TAFE'?
On our side of the House, we support students who wish to go into vocational education and training if they want to go and get that training from a private registered operator. For example, I've met with the National Electrical and Communications Association. They currently have between 500 and 600 apprentices on their books in the carpentry and building trades. There is no funding available to this organisation from the fee-free TAFE legislation, but this organisation has a 90 per cent apprenticeship completion rate. TAFE has a 50 per cent completion rate. I've also met with the Master Plumbers NSW, and I give a big shout-out to CEO Nate Smith. He said that his operation has an 80 per cent success rate in getting their plumbing apprentices through. Compare that to the rate at TAFE of 50 per cent. In April last year, Master Plumbers NSW wrote to the then skills minister, Brendan O'Connor, and sought joint funding to establish a new skills and training centre out in Western Sydney. The response was completely unequivocal. It appears that the government, who spouts their support for this industry, will not support Western Sydney in having anything other than TAFE-provided funding.
The reason that the coalition is opposing Labor's TAFE-only approach is that we support all students in this sector, not just some. We'll back every single student, regardless of whether they are training at a TAFE or at an independent provider, because, on this side of the House, we are about providing people with choice. A student who's starting vocational education or training should, if they are going to receive government funding, be able to avail themselves of the choice to either go to TAFE or go through a private operator. Why does this government so dislike private operations? Why do they not support anything other than a heavily unionised TAFE workforce? We are very concerned about Commonwealth funding, taxpayers' money, that only directs resources to one particular training model, and it's a training model that is not nearly as successful as training models developed through the private sector. I'm certainly not saying that TAFE should be defunded; I'm saying that the private sector should be equally well funded.