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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-06-14 Daily Xml
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VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING

Mr PISONI (Unley) (15:47): I would like to use this time to point out to the house—and perhaps even celebrate the fact—that this government has woken up to its responsibilities in training following 10 appalling years of vocational education funding here in South Australia. If we look at the data that is released from the NCVER and analyse that over the last 10 years we find that we have seen increases in VET funding across the country on average of 11.5 per cent.

We have seen Victoria with a 29.2 per cent increase; Queensland, an 18.8 per cent increase; and Western Australia, a 28 per cent increase in VET funding. Then, if we relate that back, here in South Australia there has been a paltry 3.4 per cent increase in funding. That is all we have seen in VET funding in that time. If we relate that back down to the amount of money spent per person between the ages of 16 and 64, in South Australia it is the lowest figure of all the states and territories.

As a matter of fact, in real dollar terms it is $21.10 lower than it was 10 years ago. We are seeing increases—again per person—in Victoria of 10 per cent and in Western Australia of 4.6 per cent but a decrease of 6.5 per cent in real dollar terms per person for training for state government VET training funding here in South Australia. Today we see the government's announcements on Skills for All. This is obviously its media strategy for the day. We had three questions to the Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills and we had a question to the Minister for Education. This was their whole focus in the media today.

They want us to look at the future of training in South Australia. They do not want us to look at the past. Even if we go back five years and compare South Australia with other states, we can see that the national growth in commencements of apprenticeships is 19.52 per cent. We have seen figures in Victoria of 28.84 per cent and in Western Australia of 24.5 per cent, but here in South Australia it is below the national average at 18.23 per cent. Completion rates are way below the national average, with a growth of only 16.5 per cent in completion rates compared with the national average of 26.67 per cent. Completion rates in Western Australia are at 40 per cent and in Queensland they are at 33.9 per cent, but here in South Australia it is a full 10 percentage points below the national average.

We have the lowest growth in the number of apprentices in training in the last five years in mainland Australia. In the number of cancellations and withdrawals from apprentices there has been no growth, no reduction in that whole time. We have seen a better result of a 9.48 per cent reduction in cancellations and withdrawals across the nation. These are very dire figures for South Australians and very dire figures for our youth in South Australia.

The latest ABS figures show youth unemployment at 32.6 per cent; that is, one in every three of our young people who are looking for a job simply cannot get a job; there is not a job for them. This government made a fanfare of announcements today with the Skills for All, but we also remember the fanfare they made when announcing concessions for payroll tax for apprentices in the lead-up to the last election. What was ironic about that is that the announcement was made in a bakery, yet, since the government for budgetary reasons pulled that concession away from employers, it has made it even harder now for employers to take on apprentices and trainees.

The Treasurer said, 'We're not interested in training bakers and butchers: we want to train people in the mining industry.' Yet that is where they launched it—in a bakery. It just shows the hypocrisy of this government. Do not think this money will be there for the long term. This is another get out of gaol free card for the government. They will milk this all the way to the election. There are no guarantees. Look at their past record of promises they have made and their inability to deliver.

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