The Federal Government has announced an additional 180,000 fee-free TAFE places in 2023 to help upskill Australians and tackle the skills crisis. This has been welcomed by the industry.
National employer association Ai Group CEO Innes Willox said, “Prime Minister Albanese’s announcement at the Jobs and Skills Summit of an additional 180,000 fee-free TAFE places in 2023 is a welcome start to a much-needed training ‘blitz’.
“This is a positive outcome of the talks between the Commonwealth Government and all states and territories at the National Cabinet meeting. The great challenge for TAFE will be building up its capacity to meet this increased demand while ensuring TAFEs are delivering the right skills that businesses need.
“The skills package will need to include efforts to improve completion rates for apprentices such as by reinstating completion incentives and increasing first year support to employers for all apprenticeships and traineeships.
“Employers are looking to the establishment of Jobs and Skills Australia to drive a national approach to workforce development planning, forecasting and investment.”
Willox also spoke at the Summit, calling for scope for both employers and employee representatives to work constructively on improvements to the bargaining system even when there are different perspectives.
“Let’s look at the Fair Work Act which was legislated by an earlier Labor Government. A key object of it is “…achieving productivity and fairness through an emphasis on enterprise-level collective bargaining. That has been the bedrock of policy for a very long time; something that former Prime Minister Paul Keating continually talked about. We should not lose sight of that.
“But very clearly, the system is not working as intended or as it should. We would argue that with sensible reforms, rather than with radical change, that the system can once again play a much greater role in delivering the objectives we all want of higher productivity and better pay for employees.
“We have proposed serious solutions directed at what are notorious problems. The Government has been developing principles to facilitate engagement with representatives of employers and employees in the context of this debate. And we agree with much of the content.
“As a country we need a modern and open economy with a workplace relations framework that encourages fairness, flexibility and productivity. We also need a system that will help us respond to the current challenges ranging from global instability, labour shortages and the ongoing recovery from the pandemic.
“And industry stands ready to assist. Ready, willing and able to participate in the conversations about how to move the system along to achieve those goals. It is in all our interests.”
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