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Date: 23 January 2025, 7:05am AEDT
Speakers: Denita Wawn, CEO Master Builders Australia
Topics: Free TAFE Bill 2024
E&OE
Ron Wilson, host 2SM Radio: Well, with the skills shortage and vocational training being hot on the agenda for both political parties ahead of the federal election, the Albanese Government has proposed making their Free TAFE Bill permanent. However, this has raised concerns about legislating the policy without proper data and consideration and for how it may distort the market and hinder growth of private registered training organisations. I’ve got the chief executive of Master Builders Australia, Denita Wawn, on the line. Denita, good morning.
Denita Wawn, CEO Master Builders Australia: Good morning, Ron.
Ron: Well, look on the surface of it, fee free TAFE sounds like what a great idea, but what are the main concerns about the bill?
Denita: Thanks, Ron, yes, it’s a fantastic idea. It’s been around now for a little while as a policy, which we strongly endorse, and we’ve got nothing against TAFE, but unfortunately, if you legislate for this without enough data to say, what does it do to the market, and particularly we’re protecting our not-for-profit industry-run registered training organisations, including those run by Master Builders Associations, because we don’t want a situation where the data says we actually don’t get any more apprentices into the system. We’re just shuffling people from the private sector to the TAFE sector. And so, we’ve got to focus on what is the best outcome in terms of getting as many people into apprenticeships, but more importantly, completing them, only 50 per cent of people that start an apprentice completed, and-
Ron: Yeah, I saw those figures, yeah, they’re terrible.
Denita: That’s right. It is a real concern, and we commend the federal government, they undertook a really comprehensive review last year about what incentives we need to look at to ensure that we retain and have completion of apprenticeships. Unfortunately, they have yet to release that review, so we would like a focus on that, as opposed to pre-empting the fee free TAFE policy and legislating it and enshrining it, which we think creates market distortions and not necessarily the best outcomes for our students.
Ron: Well just the idea of making the bill permanent, is this something they’re just throwing in the air in the run up to the election?
Denita: Look I’m not quite sure, but I think the intent is good, and that is that we need more apprentices. We know for our industry; we need more than 300-odd-thousand people to come into the sector for the next five years. I think at one stage we’re saying we needed immediately 100,000 new tradies just to meet our housing crisis targets. So, we’ve got considerable concerns around shortages. The question is, what is the best solution? And we are feeling uncomfortable with this because of market distortions. Does it in fact bring more people in, and does it, in fact, ensure that we have a much greater completion rate than we see now?
Ron: What other solutions can we look at in solving this skill shortage?
Denita: Well, a big issue, of course, is ensuring that people feel comfortable entering into the industry. We know, for example, only two per cent of our tradespeople are women. We need to change that significantly, and we run a program Women Building Australia, but equally, the government has announced grants for organisations to encourage more women into the sector. We certainly know that we need to give more support to apprentices, but the other big issue is people think an apprenticeship is a bit second class to universities. And I don’t know about you, Ron, but when I say to kids, you know you can finish an apprentice with a wage that is nearly $100,000, with no debt, and in fact, you’ve been paid to train –
Ron: Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?
Denita: It sounds much better than a massive HECs debt to me, and certainly talking to young kids these days, they are starting to get their head around that concept but also know that there are huge career opportunities in our sector.
Ron: We’re talking to Denita Wawn. She’s from the Master Builders Australia. If you have ideas on how we solve the skills shortage or comments about the free TAFE, please join us in the conversation. 13 12 69. Denita, there are also concerns about market distortion caused by these free TAFE initiatives. How would it impact the relationship between TAFE and the private RTOs?
Denita: Yeah, we know, for example, that there’s some really good partnerships between private RTOs, particularly industry-led ones, and TAFE. And so, I have been concerned that this has created a bit of tension unnecessarily between the two types of delivery mechanisms. And that’s simply not the case, this is not a criticism of TAFE, but rather saying it creates an unfair competitive advantage to them over the not-for-profit private sector. We know that Master Builders Associations run RTOs around the country. They are highly successful. And we also know that in many instances, in other sectors, there are joint RTOs between industry and unions. So, the question is, what is the best for student outcomes, and what, in particular when we know not-for-profit industry sector led run RTOs have really good completion rates, and so we shouldn’t be disadvantaging them in comparison to the government sector.
Ron: No that’s right. Are you seeing any easing in the skill shortage?
Denita: Unfortunately, not. We’re still seeing a decline in people entering into the industry, and this is a part of our concern as to the reason why we’ve got caution over this Bill. But we also need to ensure that we see those completion rates. Our big issue at the moment is we’ve got people entering but if we don’t get that completion rate above 50% then we’re in dire straits. Our focus is very much on making sure that the industry is well prepared to accept apprentices, and that we’re giving support to apprentices throughout their journey.
Ron: Well, no matter which side of politics is in power after the election, what do you need to see from them to support the housing sector?
Denita: Well, the big issue, of course, is skills, and so we’re saying more support for the apprenticeship system, particularly those completion rates. We know we need skilled migration. There’s a lot of debate at the moment about migration, but we need to ensure that we’re getting correctly skilled people into this country to help us build. We saw the housing approval stats yesterday, detached housing up slightly, but the big concern for us is high-rise, medium-rise apartments. If we don’t get those numbers up, then we’re in serious trouble. And that is all about interest rates declining. That is about inflation declining. It’s about ease of approval system. It’s getting rid of red and green tape, and of course, we need greater flexibility in our industrial relations system. Productivity in building and construction has declined by 20 per cent over 10 years, and that’s simply not acceptable.
Ron: Sounds like a mountain of issues out there to deal with. Denita, thank you so much for speaking with us this morning. Denita Wawn, she’s the Chief Executive of Master Builders of Australia.
Media contact:
Dee Zegarac
National Director, Media & Public Affairs
0400 493 071
dee.zegarac@masterbuilders.com.au