Free TAFE Bill 2024
Transcript
Ms WARE (Hughes) (18:06): I rise to speak on the Free TAFE Bill 2024, and I will start by outlining the background to this bill. I note that in the second reading speech for the bill the Minister for Skills and Training outlined the importance of a strong vocational education and training system to enable inclusion and economic equality and to save Australia's future. He stated that strong TAFEs are essential to a strong vocational and training sector. I completely agree—particularly now, when we look at the considerable shortage of skills that we have in this country—that a strong vocational education and training system is absolutely crucial. It's crucial to the further building of our country. It's crucial for the construction of our houses. It is crucial to supporting our manufacturing sector. It's crucial to supporting our retail sector and, very significantly, our beverages and hospitality sector.
However, the issue that I and others on our side have with the whole premise of this legislation is that it is dealing only with TAFEs. TAFEs are not the only VET providers in our country, and indeed they shouldn't be. I think what the government could have done on this was to address some of the other underlying issues that we have with the skills shortage in our country, and this legislation, unfortunately, does not do that. The minister's speech talks about free TAFE providing a prosperous and equitable Australia, removing barriers to education and training, and delivering a coordinated national response to workforce shortages in industries and occupations of local and national priority. It can do that, but why then is the same assistance not being offered to the private VET organisations? Many of those organisations provide very important, successful and competent training. They provide additional support particularly for our younger apprentices. That's the first issue that I have with this legislation. Again, I fail to understand why this government has an obsession, I suppose it is, with TAFE and not with general VET training overall.
This bill commits the Commonwealth to make a grant of financial assistance to states and territories for the delivery of free TAFE places, with states and territories required to enter into a free TAFE agreement with the Commonwealth which sets out the terms and conditions of financial assistance. I should say that I have no doubt that the intention behind this legislation is to address some of the skills and workforce shortages that we have in this country, but it has not been dealt with in the way that it could have been. It could have been so much better.
I started by referring to some of the critical shortages in, for example, our construction industry. All of us in this place—and everybody in this country—knows that we have a chronic shortage of housing, which has led to a massive housing affordability crisis. Who is going to build those houses? TAFE does provide training opportunities for our builders, for our roofers, for our tilers and for our electricians, but TAFE is not the only place where we can skill up the workforce that is needed in our construction sector. I particularly refer to the work that is done by the National Electrical and Communications Association, known as NECA, because, before I gave this speech, I spoke to the CEO of NECA to find out how exactly they train the electricians of the future.
In my home state of New South Wales, they have around 500 to 600 apprentices at their registered training organisation campus in Chullora, and it's a campus that teaches the apprentices. It's a not-for-profit led charity, and it has received not one cent from the Albanese Labor government's supposed 100,000 free TAFE spaces, so this legislation will not help that organisation. This organisation said that, comparing its results against the results of TAFE, it has a roughly 90 per cent completion rate from when apprentices first sign up to the completion of their trades, whereas in TAFE it's around a 50 per cent completion rate. When I asked NECA what the reason for that was, their response was that they provide some mentoring and also some pastoral care to their apprentices as they are going through. They also ensure that their apprentices are matched correctly with prospective employers because, as we know, sometimes a relationship between an employee and an employer is just not a good fit. In those circumstances, they will then work with the apprentice to ensure that they are moved to an employer that may be a better fit for that particular electrical apprentice.
We've got a situation where, already, we can see that the private organisations can provide a lot of assistance and extra benefits that are not necessarily provided through TAFE, and it is the same when we consider the plumbing sector, particularly Master Plumbers. I have similarly spoken to the CEO there. Master Plumbers has a similar enterprise to NECA. I'm particularly drawn to Master Plumbers because, as of next year, my elder son James will be a plumber's apprentice. It was a similar conversation that I had. I asked, 'What are your completion rates?' They said, 'They're around 80 per cent.' Again, compared to TAFE, around 50 per cent—and the same reasons were put forward. There is that level of pastoral care. There is a bit more assistance and oversight provided to the apprentices than they receive in TAFE. That is why I do question why this legislation is only directed at TAFE and why the Albanese Labor government does not seem to be able to think outside of the square to consider private organisations in the skills and training sector.
This is a view that is backed up by business. It's backed up by industry. Just last week, I was over at the Ingleburn Chamber of Commerce, which is down in south-west Sydney. This is the new part of the electorate of Hughes, and I'm very glad that I'll have the opportunity to represent and serve the people of Ingleburn and the businesses of Ingleburn in this parliament. I hope that they give me the opportunity to serve and represent them after the next election. I raised this issue about this legislation and about the free TAFE, and, in the feedback that came back from those in industry down in Ingleburn, they said we need to look at other options. There were some private VET organisations there that said, 'We provide these services; we can often get the apprentices through in a shorter timeframe.' They certainly ensure that the apprentices are with employers where it is a good match and that the apprentices are not in any way suffering from some of the unfortunate things that have happened to apprentices in the past. They ensure that they are paid correctly. They ensure that their hours are correct, and mostly they really assist them to get through their course.
The chamber of commerce people who were present that day also indicated to me that what they also need out there are industry based apprentices. This is what we need to do in this place. This is what government needs to be doing. This is why the coalition has put this out as one of the election promises that we'll be taking to the next election. We need to be going out to industry and saying, 'What is it that you need?' I have a lot of manufacturers in my electorate in Moorebank and also down in and around Ingleburn and Macquarie Fields, for example. When I have gone to manufacturing forums where the sector comes together, I have said, 'What do you need?' I have been through a lot of the manufacturing places down there, such as Cullen Steel and Darrell Lea chocolates. They are very different. The Darrell Lea chocolates was a good experience, I must say. There was a big weighing machine there, and I said, 'Please don't tell me that you weigh us on the way in and then weigh us on the way out, because that would mean that I do not want to come in!' But what the manufacturing industry are saying is, 'We can't get, today, the fitters, the turners, the boilermakers and the machinists to run our factories.' We are doing a lot more now with robotics and with AI, but, at the end of the day, there is still a big need for a lot of trades in these factories at these sites that are simply not coming through the school system.
With that, there are a couple of things we need to be going into schools saying. There are plenty of students in probably year 10 or year 11 for whom finishing school and going for an academic sort of learning at a university is simply not the right course. They need to be shown, I suppose, other pathways, and I don't think that in recent years we have done this particularly well. I have 18-year-old boys, and I know that it is not really encouraged at their schools. I think we need to, in the schools, be doing a lot more of the school based apprenticeships. We need to be talking to career advisers and saying to them, 'This needs to be a pathway that you can show the students.' We don't need to push all our students into university, and we don't need to push them all into TAFE; we need to show them that there are a whole lot of different opportunities, once they're finishing school, for further education and for further skills development.
Those are, broadly, some of the issues that I see with this legislation as it relates particularly to my electorate. I know the Deputy Leader of the Opposition has spoken on this legislation a number of times, and she has set out the coalition's position in relation to it. She has stipulated that industry based apprentices will definitely be part of the coalition's policy going forward to the next election.
I support further education and higher education. I support federal money being put into that. But it shouldn't just be limited to the TAFE sector.