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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-02-04 Daily Xml
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TAFE SA

Mr BOYER (Wright) (14:24): My question is to the Minister for Innovation and Skills. Is the Department for Innovation and Skills blocking TAFE SA's ability to offer fee-for-service business administration and community services courses in metropolitan Adelaide?

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The Minister for Education has the call.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, members on my right and members on my left! I remind members the questioner is entitled to be heard in silence. The Minister for Education has the call and is entitled to be heard in silence in answer to the question.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Minister for Education) (14:24): I thank the member for the question. There were changes last year to a number of courses on the Subsidised Training List, which is of course in the Department for Innovation and Skills, and fee-for-service delivery is obviously more a matter for the TAFE board, and they report to me.

The fact in relation to changes made by the Department for Innovation and Skills is a function of the fact that obviously the government is committed to ensuring that students who are wanting to have careers get high-quality careers, and businesses and industries that need a skilled workforce have that workforce supported. This government, the Department for Innovation and Skills, TAFE SA, the Department for Education and the entire cabinet have a view that those are the two key factors that we make our priorities in setting policy.

What do we do for the students to support their future career prospects, and what do we do for businesses and industries to ensure they have the skilled workforce to build prosperity and create jobs in South Australia? I think it is reasonable that the Department for Innovation and Skills, in commissioning VET from TAFE and from non-government providers in South Australia, has a mindset to quality and a mindset to cost and what is going to be in the best interests of the people of South Australia.

TAFE SA has done an extraordinary job over the last three years in turning around the ruined and degraded reputation left by those opposite. After 16 years of government, they corporatised TAFE, they set up new legislation that had government oversight over a board and over an organisation and then they failed to provide that oversight, and we saw the extraordinary catastrophe that hit TAFE in 2017 as a result. They sacked the chair of the board, they let go the chief executive of the organisation and they promoted the minister responsible to deputy leader of the Labor Party.

We worked very hard over a series of years to improve the quality to the point where, having failed 16 out of 16 audited courses in 2017, in 2018 we passed the audit and then followed that up the following year with a seven-year reaccreditation for the TAFE SA organisation, ensuring that the quality that was required met the national training standards expectations. That was the work that was undertaken by this government, and that was the work undertaken by the TAFE staff under this government. But, can I tell you, one of the consequences of that failed Labor mismanagement was that pretty much—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: It was reported to me by the former chief executive, Alex Reid, that more than half of all TAFE staff across the organisation had to be involved in fixing course design, had to be involved in ensuring that the failures of the former government—to ensure that those courses met the national training package's quality standards and expectations. More than half of TAFE staff during that year had to be involved in that rescue package of the quality product, and that had extraordinary challenges for TAFE in its cost consequence.

There was an investment by this government over a series of three budgets well in excess of $100 million in helping TAFE along that rescue package, but it leaves a cost challenge and a cost pressure. When we are trying to get an outcome for the students who want a quality training package to ensure that they can get a career, and indeed for workplaces and industries who need that workforce to be delivered, we want the quality. Now TAFE delivers quality, and not-for-profit non-government training providers also deliver quality, and some private providers also deliver quality in some of these areas.

We also look at cost, and when the TAFE package is four times more expensive than a training provider in a not-for-profit or a private provider who is delivering the same quality, then of course the government is going to be mindful of that as well. There were some changes made last year, they have been ventilated publicly and they have been described, and now there are some different arrangements in place.

This has led to some concerns from the unions and some job losses, I think a tiny proportion of the job losses in the last couple of years compared to the, I think, more than 600 job losses in the last six years of Labor (and I can find those details if you like)—an extraordinary, arbitrary and ad hoc series of job cuts when Labor was in power. We have transitioned some courses that are capable of being delivered by the non-government or not-for-profit sectors at the same quality but at lower cost. We can get more outcomes for students and we can get better outcomes for industry and business.

The SPEAKER: The time for answering the question has expired. I note the momentary glitch in the technology, and we will continue to monitor that closely.

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