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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-07-29 Daily Xml
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Skills for Jobs in Regions

The Hon. T.J. STEPHENS (15:18): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills questions about the Skills for Jobs in Regions Program.

Leave granted.

The Hon. T.J. STEPHENS: The Skills for Jobs in Regions Program is curiously absent from the 2015-16 budget papers. When questioned by the very good member for Goyder during estimates, the Minister for Regional Development referred the question to the Minister for Employment, Higher Education and Skills in her portfolio. The 2014-15 budget refers to the program being expanded from 1 July 2014 to the tune of $213,000 per year for four years, with a goal of putting 6,000 more people to work over the next three years. My questions are:

1. Can the minister confirm that the Skills for Jobs in Regions program will continue in the 2015-16 financial year and beyond, as per the government's election commitment?

2. Can the minister confirm the number of people in jobs under the Skills for Jobs in Regions program in 2014-15?

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) (15:19): I acknowledge the question of the honourable member—because I certainly can't thank him for it. This is a lazy opposition. Truly, I am almost speechless, but not quite, of course. If the honourable member had bothered to listen to anything that has been said in this place about WorkReady or bothered to go online, where there is a wealth of information about the new course, he would see that Skills for Jobs in Regions has been disbanded completely, because it has been replaced by Jobs First under WorkReady.

Skills for Jobs in Regions was part of the Skills for All policy program. The honourable member, I know, was asleep at the time, but Skills for All doesn't exist anymore. It's over; it's gone. That includes Skills for Jobs in Regions. What we've done is to create —

The Hon. T.J. Stephens: Was the Minister for Regional Affairs asleep when that was disbanded?

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Stephens, if you want to ask a question of the Hon. Mr Brock, have one of your colleagues in the lower house ask the question.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: He is so lazy.

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway: We did under estimates, and he said, 'Ask her.'

The PRESIDENT: Well, let the minister answer.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: Under WorkReady, we have taken out the best from our experience from Skills for All. We have listened to the industry and we've redesigned a system of training, including regional training, that better fits industry needs, is more closely linked to real job outcomes and where completion rates will be improved. That is what we have done under WorkReady.

Skills for Jobs in Regions was a program that was highly successful under Skills for All. It worked extremely well, because it was a program that particularly streamlined training activities to real industry and employment outcomes. It required a partnership between an RTO and an employer, and it delivered real jobs. It was a wonderful success. We've built on that and improved that through Jobs First under WorkReady.

Under Jobs First, there are two streams, and I would urge the honourable member to lift his finger and go online. All of this information is there and has been for quite some time. Under Jobs First, there are two streams and both of these are, as I said, streamlined training programs that are particularly targeted for programs in regions.

What we've done is expand Skills for Jobs in Regions. It had a very narrow focus. When we first set it up, it was mainly targeted at really significantly disadvantaged groups, like the chronically unemployed. We saw the great potential, we saw the pick-up, we saw the success rate of it and, as I said, we've built on that and improved it under Jobs First, where the scope is much broader.

It allows both accredited and non-accredited training, so the training program can be streamlined to meet specific employer and industry needs, and it also ensures that those people have the training pathways they need to successfully complete. If they need a top-up of literary skills or numeracy skills along the way, that can be added in as well. I urge the honourable member, as I said, to lift his finger, not to be lazy, and to just go and have a look at what we've done.

As I said, we are very much committed to delivering real jobs aligned with real industry needs, particularly to service our regional areas, because we certainly learned, under Skills for All, that one size doesn't fit all, that we need to have training programs that can be tailor-made to fit various regional needs. We know that each region has different economic drivers and a different business outlay, so it is important that we can streamline our training programs to meet regional differences and reach real employment outcomes.

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