Hansard PMS: Manufacturing Industry

MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY

Mr JUSTIN CLANCY (Albury) (20:09): The National Skills Commission's Skills Priority List 2022 reveals shortages in 286 occupations, compared with 153 just one year earlier. The number of jobs advertised reached 309,900 in August 2022, which is a 42 per cent increase from August 2021. The top 20 occupations in demand for Australia, based on a combination of skills shortages, current job vacancies and projected employment growth over the next five years, tell us that registered nurses are the most in‑demand workers. Scrolling down the list, we see that programmers, carers, construction workers, motor mechanics, cooks, metal fitters and machinists, and electricians all rank higher than the next primarily university‑qualified priority group, civil engineers, at position 13. This tells us it is trade skills that drive the nation.

As a participant at a recent Business NSW round table on training pathways and the NextGen Manufacturing roadshow in Albury put it, "We might not be able to deliver the future." Skilled manufacturing work is being turned away now. What I am hearing from these discussions can be summarised in three points. First, governments must be in tune with manufacturers. For example, government grants and funding support programs based on job creation or apprenticeships can unintentionally steer manufacturers away from the needs of manufacturing itself. Another participant spoke to this, and said:

I completely appreciate it is in the State's interest to create jobs—this is obviously a good ambition. However, it's important to realise that it's also in the State's interest (because it's in the local economy's interest) to achieve other, potentially less tangible, benefits such as: enabling increased productivity and revenue generation for businesses, which has, (a) supply chain, and (b) household consumption impacts; replacing, or improving competitiveness with respect to imported products and services; diversifying economies where vulnerabilities exist; removing constraints for an entire region or sector that market forces are not addressing; attracting or developing skills.

I acknowledge that a number of government programs have been successful. I am thinking of the Regional Industry Education Partnerships Program, which designs and delivers bespoke opportunities for employers to connect with secondary schools, creating pathways to careers and employment, and the Girls Can Too campaign to encourage greater participation by women in the trades. Local manufacturers and supporters spoke favourably about the Coalition's $240 million Regional Job Creation Fund, which supported existing businesses in regional New South Wales to grow, innovate and increase productivity.

Yet, with no replacement program in sight, the Labor Government's Comprehensive Expenditure Review, ushered in without warning to manufacturers, is landing in disastrous fashion. I heard from a regional manufacturer who has had to hit the brakes hard on a multimillion‑dollar contract here, with its United States partner losing much more. That local manufacturer is now considering working with the government in another State. The New South Wales Government must start communicating in advance about its shutdowns, program closures, reviews, pauses and halts. Industry, students and training organisations are being left in the dark. Labor is choking the State's employment and productivity pipeline. Just think what this is doing to potential apprentices.

TheAustralian Universities Accord Panel Discussion Paper notes that in 1989 the percentage of the Australian population aged 25 to 34 educated to at least bachelor level or above was 12 per cent. The 2008 Bradley Review of Australian Higher Education set a target to lift this to 40 per cent by 2020. By 2021, Australia had attained this and pushed to 44 per cent. Meanwhile, manufacturers are talking about the drop in numbers of school‑age applicants looking for work experience in a trade, and of negativity coming from careers advisors. We can move beyond barriers and postures that denigrate TAFE in the public consciousness, and work together to maximise synchronicity between industry, unions, small business and skills training institutions.

The perspective emerging from forum discussions centres on becoming an "employer of choice". We know that this means businesses reshaping the work they do to include an emphasis on wellbeing, ongoing career advancement and education, more flexible work hours, and efforts to eliminate any remaining pockets of sexism, bullying, ageism and so on. This will become a powerful encouragement for students, teachers and manufacturers to make that move, which will improve their training and their prospects for balancing fulfilling work and life.