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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-06-02 Daily Xml
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WorkReady

Mr BELL (Mount Gambier) (15:27): I rise today to grieve on the WorkReady skills training scheme. This is quite unbelievable when you sit down and start looking at the content of it and, more importantly, how it has been announced and is being delivered. I want to say right up-front that I am a major supporter of TAFE SA, particularly in regional areas. Having lived in Mount Gambier for all of my life, I have seen TAFE absolutely gutted by the Skills for All program. In fact, having been involved in the training sector when Skills for All was being rolled out, the words that were fed to us were: 'The government has just copied the Victorian model.'

What has happened in Victoria? It has sent Victoria broke. Victoria were then changing their system but, no, the government went headlong into the Skills for All space. I think people will forget, in terms of TAFE, that 377 lecturers, or staff, were given the boot at an average of $120,000 per redundancy, or voluntary separation, whichever way you want to call it, at the cost of $30 million. We talk about not having enough money for training, there is $30 million that disappeared over the last three years.

Of course, many of those lecturers (competent lecturers) left the system and in some cases started their own training organisations, but there is a little kicker when you take a voluntary separation package and that is a period of time that you are not allowed back in the public sector or training space.

It is clear to me that this government has no idea how a business is run. A business in any sense of the word looks for stable governments. Whether it is international business or businesses within this state, they look for stable governments, because they are putting their hard-earned money on the line and the last thing they want is a policy backflip or a thought bubble from a premier or a minister that will decimate their business, and that is exactly what is happening.

We have had—and it is quite unbelievable—a minister in the other house announce this huge change in direction, then get on a plane and fly halfway across the world. I have heard of the old 'announce and defend' mantra and policy, and give credit where that is due, but this is a new one: the 'announce and depart' mantra, where you leave it for the rest to pick up all the pieces. This announcement is absolutely disgraceful and it will lead to more job losses at a time where unemployment in this state is around 7.1 per cent. I know of private training organisations that will be laying staff off in our regional areas. In some cases the government might be saying, 'They could go back and work for TAFE, even though we just got rid of 377 of them to the tune of $30 million, but they will get a job back at TAFE.' However, under the proviso of their voluntary separation package, many will not be able to do that.

I want to put on record that I was absolutely disgusted by the Premier's responses today, and I do not say that lightly, because I normally stand up here and try to support or add value to some of the government's decisions. The idea that now this is the employers' fault and the employers need to be responsible for their own training in part is true—have no doubt about that. However, what the Premier fails to realise is that this current state government has both its hands around an employer's throat, strangling the life out of their business, so the last thing they will be doing is taking on more staff. Of course, if you are not taking on staff you do not have to worry about training them. This is another handbrake on our economy. Businesses will stop employing people because they will not be able to afford the training spaces.

The other issue is that private providers provide niche markets. I have an employer in the South-East that I am trying to advocate for, even though the Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills has not been here, and trying to work with her department on this very specific business, a motor rewind business. This business has two apprentices. They do not offer any training in South Australia, so the training has to come from Victoria. If we cannot get some type of assistance, this business will be letting two of their apprentices go because they cannot get the training: assistance so the young people can head interstate for the training or to get Bendigo TAFE over here to help with training.

There are courses that are just not going to be offered through TAFE, even though TAFE do a wonderful job, because they are niche markets. This is a huge impediment to many people's businesses. I would like to briefly mention some of the fantastic registered training organisations in the South-East that will be affected by this decision: Limestone Coast Training; LITA, a specialist harvest and haulage operator; Ascent Training; Di-Monty Training Solutions; Gramac Solutions; and Interskills.

Time expired.

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