Vocational Education and Training

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (15:06): My question is to the Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills. Will the minister inform the chamber about the red tape review of the vocational education and training sector?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills, Minister for Science and Information Economy, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Business Services and Consumers) (15:06): I thank the honourable member for his very important question—his genuine question. As I have said, it is an important question, especially at this time when we are left wondering just how committed and serious the federal Liberal government is about supporting people to gain the skills necessary to get jobs. That is what it is all about: trying to ensure that people have access to gaining employment and, of course, accessing the VET sector is a very important and critical pathway to assisting people to develop the skills they need to gain employment.

You just have to wonder when the federal Treasurer, Mr Hockey, announced last week what looks like a $400 million reduction in our VET and higher education sector. An amount of $400 million is going to be stripped from our VET and higher education sectors. That is a $400 million reduction over four years in funding for apprentices, trainees, vocational education and higher education—all of these students are going to be impacted.

It is a grave concern that the federal Liberal government will cease funding national partnership agreements; that is going to result in around a $37.5 million budget impact in 2017-18, equating to an almost 23 per cent reduction in real terms for vocational training from 2014-15 through to 2017-18.

In addition, 10 commonwealth-funded skills and training programs are going to be abolished by this federal Liberal government. They will cease from 1 January 2015—a reduction of 10 skills and training programs, or to put it another away, it is almost a $20 million commonwealth reduction to South Australia over about a three-year period, I think that figure is.

Sitting alongside this, we see a federal Liberal government that is also cutting industry support funds, such as Enterprise Connect and Commercialisation Australia, to the tune of $1.845 billion. It is astonishing, really, and unbelievable when you consider how integral vocational education and training is to our economy and to the future particularly of our young people but not just young people. I have already spoken in this place today about the importance of training to older workers who have perhaps been retrenched to be able to reskill, upskill and find future employment, but regardless of these heartless and difficult cuts which are extremely difficult to understand, here in South Australia we will fight these budget cuts. This government will stand up for South Australians and we will fight for the interests of South Australia.

This government's record speaks for itself. In 2013, Skills For All funded 134,900 course enrolments, attracting more people to training and generating a 63 per cent increase on the 84,300 enrolments in 2012. This meant an additional 52,800 additional enrolments in government funded courses. I am advised that South Australia has gone from being one of the most costly jurisdictions for training to now being the most cost-efficient. We are now the most cost-efficient TAFE system in the country with a 44 per cent reduction in the cost per hour to publicly funded training.

We want to do all that we can to assist registered training organisations to be their best for the people of South Australia and that is why I announced in April my intention to undertake a red tape reduction review in the VET sector with the goal of simplifying the process for employers and training providers and improving outcomes for students. I decided to undertake this review in response to feedback from businesses, in particular, and the training sector about the increased burdens on RTOs in meeting government reporting requirements and the duplication of effort between state and federal jurisdictions. We aim to maintain our reputation for having a high quality vocational education and training system, one that minimises unnecessary regulation burden and provides the best possible outcome for students.

Harder though this is going to be when we take into account the millions of dollars that the Abbott federal government has ripped out of our system, we will fight, as I said, to maintain our standards here. The review will look at identifying areas where there are administrative processes that could be streamlined, identifying areas of overlap and duplication, and areas of improvement for ICT systems, including looking at issues regarding the national regulation, so we can refer those matters to COAG to be included in their harmonisation efforts.