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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-10-17 Daily Xml
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National Skills Agreement

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:24): My question is to the Minister for Education, Training and Skills. How many places in the government's skills agreement will be reserved for or available to the non-government skills sector? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: The government has just announced a skills agreement claiming 150,000 places over the next five years, but this matter does not appear to be detailed in the publicly available information—certainly not in the minister's press release. A substantial portion of skilled training in South Australia, especially for apprentices and trainees, is undertaken by non-government providers, including both industry-led not-for-profits and independent providers. In the recent rounds of the fee-free TAFE program, many such providers were given very few or no places.

The Hon. B.I. BOYER (Wright—Minister for Education, Training and Skills) (14:25): I thank the member for Morialta for the question. I am pleased to have the opportunity to talk about the very substantial skills agreement that the Premier and I just announced, along with the member for Adelaide, not more than an hour ago.

We all know the challenge that is in front of us as a nation; I know the member for Morialta knows that too. We are amidst a national skills crisis. There is a lot that we need to do, not just to meet existing demand but also to plan for future demand, particularly in areas of state priority if we were to look at things like AUKUS and the delivery of preschool for three year olds and hydrogen. There are big workforce challenges and targets that we need to meet to make sure we deliver on those opportunities as well.

What has been announced in the last 24 hours, and then announced by the Premier and I this morning, is that we have signed up to a five-year National Skills Agreement with the federal government. Within that is 150,000 training places over five years, which is a 50,000 increase in places. I asked the agency to go back and do a little bit of work on how long it has been since we have seen an uplift of this magnitude in our state, and the answer was they couldn't find one bigger in recent memory. I think that paints a picture for the house of the significance and magnitude of the agreement that we have struck today.

To the specific question that the member for Morialta asked about how many of these places will be available to private or not-for-profit training providers, there certainly will be. We know, and I have said, I think, since day one of being the Minister for Training and Skills in South Australia, that if we are to be serious about getting on top of the existing shortages that we have and being able to actually deliver on the workforce targets that we have for some of those priority areas in our state, we will need all parts of the training and skills sector in South Australia working together.

I think that we were pretty up-front in what we delivered within the first 12 months of government. The member for Morialta refers to fee-free TAFE. Well, I can say that in the twelve and a half thousand places that we delivered in an agreement with the federal government at the end of last year, there were I think something like 2,000 of the twelve and a half that were set aside for not-for-profit and some for-profit providers as well, which was significantly more than a lot of other jurisdictions did. That was done because—

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner: It made it worse. They were terrible and slightly less terrible.

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: Certainly it was twelve and a half thousand more fee-free places than the previous government offered. We had said from the outset that we needed to make sure that all parts of the training and skills sector—

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Morialta!

The Hon. B.I. BOYER: We said from the outset that we needed all parts of the training and skills sectors—government, for-profit and not-for-profit—working together to make sure that we get on top of existing demand and vacancies and plan for future demand. We delivered that in a very significant way in the first tranche of fee-free TAFE places that we offered, which have all been expended now, such was the uptake. In terms of the 150,000 places that the Premier and I announced today in conjunction with the commonwealth government, a lot of those will be accessible by for-profit and not-for-profit training providers.

Today, we have announced the envelope, the amount of money behind it, a five-year agreement worth $2.29 billion, an uplift in the vicinity of more than $600 million for South Australia alone, and the heavy lifting in terms of that uplift actually being done by the South Australian state government, by the Malinauskas government, with more than $400 million of that uplift coming from this government here.

We will now work with it, making our own skills plan and using the power that we have protected to be able to decide our priorities ourselves in terms of exactly what professions and qualifications will be available under that 150,000 places, and then we will be able to communicate to the sector—government, for-profit and not-for-profit—about what will be available to them.

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