Vocational Education and Training

Extract from Hansard

21st August 2025

Motion

Hon Klasey Hirst (11:24 am) without notice: I move:

That this house acknowledges the work of the Cook Labor government to bolster the reputation and value of vocational education and training in Western Australia.

Hon Dr Steve Thomas (12:09 pm): Thank you, Deputy President. See guys, that is what happens—you have to jump up early on! Here is a tip for new members: get in early and jump up. I am still a rugby player! Every year my career gets a little bit better.

Deputy President, thank you for the call. It has been a good debate thus far and it has been presented in a very positive manner. Hon Klasey Hirst obviously has a passion for the training sector, which is good. I like the fact that the motion did not congratulate the Cook Labor government for anything in particular, but identified an issue. There was a bit in the speech. I appreciate the contribution of Hon Andrew O'Donnell, who encouraged me to use charts. That is something I will now try to do on a more regular basis. Contributions were of course also made by Hon Tjorn Sibma and the minister.

I want to address a couple of issues. The first is completion rates, which was raised a couple of times. The Labor Party is very keen to say, "Look, we've got all these fee-free courses in place and we've fixed the TAFE system and the training system because we're giving lots of stuff away for free." It is that classic old chestnut: we are doing more and spending more, therefore the outcome is good. That is the problem. This is the left-wing bench of the Labor Party. The more you do, the more you spend, the better it is. We are right back to Sir Humphrey. Administration goes round and round and there is no end to it. We should be looking at the results and the outcomes. I was encouraged by Hon Andrew O'Donnell and his need for documentation. I am going to provide a little bit for him.

I seek leave to table a chart of both apprenticeships and traineeships from 2016–17 to 2024–25.

Leave granted.

(See paper 459.)

Hon Dr Steve Thomas: It is nice to have enthusiasm from your own side on occasion. We just have to try to wake everybody up as we go.

Hon Samantha Rowe: They don't even want to see it!

Hon Dr Steve Thomas: No, you probably do not, Hon Samantha "Rowdy" Rowe. Here it is in slightly enlarged form, as I am just trying to make it big enough for Hon Andrew O'Donnell to see. The problem is this. The blue line—the middle line—is apprenticeships commenced. The green line at the top is people and apprenticeships, and commencements went up a bit but have dropped back a little bit in 2024–25. By the way, in case members are wondering where I got the figures, I got them from the government. Every three months or so I ask the minister for training what the numbers are. Most recently, I think as recently as in May this particular year—

Hon Dan Caddy: So you do get answers to your questions after all!

Hon Dr Steve Thomas: On occasion—just on occasion! This is a question on notice though, answered on 17 June 2025 by the new minister. I did enjoy our erstwhile colleague, the then Leader of the House Hon Sue Ellery, who used to provide these answers to questions on notice on a regular basis. Here is the problem: the red line at the bottom is apprenticeships completed and it has flatlined from 2016–17. You guys came in in 2017–18 and it stayed pretty constant. Bear in mind that for the first couple of years the economy was a bit tight. We hit the boom in 2019–20; it was a massive boom, as we have discussed. That was six years ago now. All this money was coming in but completions on apprenticeships have not shifted. They are exactly as they were for all of that period of time. In fact, about 4,500 apprenticeships were completed back in 2016–17 and 4,800 last financial year. The completion rate of apprenticeships has not actually increased. There are more people in apprenticeships and more people are dropping out. That is a shame and that is problematic, but the reality is that the government has not significantly increased the completion rate. Traineeships have a similar role, honourable members of the Labor Party. The number of traineeships commenced has increased, but completions have actually gone down from nearly 10,000 in 2016–17 to under 5,000 in the last financial year.

We all talk about how much we like the training sector, and we do. Government members are very keen on the training sector and are great supporters of it—well done—as are we, as is Hon Tjorn Sibma, who takes great pride in supporting the TAFE training sector and the apprenticeship sector. However, the reality is, for all its enthusiasm about putting out fee-free courses, the government provides free courses and measures its success by the amount of money out the door, not by the number of completed traineeships and apprenticeships. I agree with the minister that that will stimulate the economy and deliver better outcomes to Western Australia. That is the bit we have all agreed on so far today. Can we please move on from the historical past, whether it is the previous Liberal government, which threw out free courses, or the previous Labor government, because these courses are not actually delivering the outcomes that the government thinks they are delivering. Maybe that will change in the future. We had this massive economic boom and a massive boom in construction. These days, across Australia, the vast majority of that economic boom is being funded by the public purse. Looking at the growth of construction, public construction is booming and private construction is rather stagnant. That is exactly what has happened in Western Australia. The asset investment program went from $6 billion to $12 billion at the same time that surpluses grew by $6 billion and iron ore royalties went up from $6 billion to $12 billion. The reality is that public investment is driving the growth in construction in particular.

Before we get too excited about this—completions are a critical issue—there is a second issue I would like to raise. The second issue is one that we have talked about before: the massive gap between what industry wants, particularly TAFE apprentices, to have learnt, and what TAFE is providing to its apprentices. How do we know that? Again, my good friend, the erstwhile Leader of the House, Hon Sue Ellery—

A member interjected.

Hon Dr Steve Thomas: It means the same thing—erstwhile means former! Hon Sue Ellery was smart enough to know there was an issue. I have a lot of respect for Hon Sue Ellery. What did she do when she became the training minister? She put two industry liaison officers into all the regions of TAFE—North Metropolitan, South Metropolitan and South Regional TAFE. She put in two industry liaison offices because it was made plain to her by industry that the skills that these apprentices needed were not the skills that were being delivered. She knew that. I knew two of these industry liaison officers really well. They are personal friends of mine. I am not going to name them for obvious reasons. They might one day want to work for the government again. They went out and they spoke to industry. The Labor Party is vicious if you are not careful! They went out and spoke to industry and they came back and they said to the administrators of TAFE, which I presume eventually got back to the minister but maybe it did not, that they had consulted with industry, particularly in contracting and constructing, for courses like the ones that Hon Klasey Hirst really loves, such as heavy diesel mechanics. They said, "Industry has told us the skills that you are teaching are not sufficiently relevant for us to get value out of these apprentices, so when you've trained them, we have to retrain them." The two friends I have who spoke to industry said, "That's what we got told and that's the message we took back to the administration in TAFE." I got it from heavy diesel mechanics who said they are teaching what is in the past not what is in the present. They have no idea about what is going to come in the future. It was exactly the same response for air-conditioning engineers. I cannot tell members how many industries have come to me and said that the skills they are getting are not the skills they need and they have to retrain them at the end of the day. Hon Sue Ellery had the right idea: go and talk to industry to find out. These people asked industry, and industry said, "These are the skills that our apprentices need."

There is a contracting business in the South West that has 80 to 90 apprentices on average. It is a huge business. It got so frustrated with South Regional TAFE that it took its apprentices—every one it could—out of Bunbury TAFE and took them up to the WesTrac Institute WA because at least they would get the skills that were required. There was a massive impact on Bunbury TAFE. Do members know what the response was from TAFE administration when they were told the industry needed these things? They said, "We don't teach that. That's not what we teach. We do this." The message was, "We're not flexible enough to teach the things that are actually needed."

If there is a second message out of my contribution today it is to go back and talk to industry again and repeat the work of Hon Sue Ellery. The current minister can go back and have a look and ask, "What are the skills that industry needs in the graduates they are providing?" This time around, the government can make sure that those are the skills that are being delivered. The government might get that completion rate up and people in work.