Language and Literacy Skills

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (14:41): My question is to the Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills. Will the minister advise the chamber of any recent changes in our capacity to provide language and literacy skills for people about to enter the workforce?

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) (14:41): I thank the honourable member for his most important question. The Weatherill Labor government has been very clear, very specific and committed in wanting to work with business and industry to keep growing the South Australian economy, and we are seeing the results.

In the year to March 2014 South Australia's goods and exports reached a record $12.2 billion, representing a year-on-year growth of 14 per cent, and our retail turnover was 4.9 per cent higher than a year ago. When we have reached, and gone beyond, our target of 100,000 training places three years in advance, we are acknowledged as having the most cost-efficient VET training in the nation, and we have been working closely with industry to provide a skilled workforce that we need now and into the future.

Of course, what happens in the midst of all this is that along comes a federal Liberal government that hands down a draconian budget, and it is extremely disappointing to me that, yet again, I am advising the chamber of a significant reduction in federal spending in the area of training and skills funding and industry assistance. Ten commonwealth training programs that have been improving the skills of workers and job seekers will be discontinued here in South Australia due to a projected $38.8 million funding reduction announced in the federal Liberal budget; $38.8 million of funding reduction announced by the federal Liberal government.

I am advised that funding currently worth about $73.6 million, based on South Australia's population share, would be cut to around $34.8 million. This means that more local companies will be locked out of funding critical to them and to our state in supporting skills and workforce development. In keeping with what seems to be a consistent theme in the federal budget, that of taking away from those of modest means, funding for the Workplace English Language and Literacy (WELL) program, which was worth $95 million nationally over three years, will now be decreased annually until funding runs out completely in 2017-18.

The cuts to the WELL program—and I am talking about the Workplace English Language and Literacy program, fundamental literacy skills that are required—will make the strategy's target of two-thirds of all working age people having the literacy and numeracy skills needed to take up opportunities of a modern economy by 2022 obviously much harder to reach.

The impact of this in South Australia means that $2.3 million of funding provided to South Australia in the 2014-15 year will be cut by around 75 per cent, or $605,000. This rips away some 11,000 training places potentially. This commonwealth reduction will mean that from 1 July this year, we will go from being able to offer 1,500 training places to just 400, yet another appalling cut by the federal Liberals.

The cuts obviously do not stop there, at skills and workforce development. We now know that the full impact of the federal budget cuts is $898 million that the state will not receive across the forward estimates, 2017-18. This reduced funding is equivalent to losing nearly 600 beds in four years' time in the health system, or it equates to around 43 per cent of all hospital beds in regional South Australia. The total impact of these disgraceful cuts over the forward estimates includes the $47.2 million to skills funding; a $655 million reduction in health funding; $123 million in concession funding gone; a $45 million reduction in education funding; and another $28 million reduction over and above initiatives, including the $12.8 million repayment sought from the Northern Expressway project.

As I said, it is extremely disappointing that access programs—and a fundamental skills program such as WELL—will significantly be reduced due to federal Liberal government funding cuts. It is even more disappointing that those opposite refuse to stand up to their federal colleagues to get these funding cuts reversed, refuse to look after the interests of South Australians and urge their federal colleagues to reverse these draconian cuts.