Page 1331 - Week 04 - Thursday, 30 March 2017
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I am also pleased to inform the Assembly that the skilled capital and Australian apprenticeships programs have recently made changes designed to attract students from a wider range of refugee and asylum seeker groups. Permanent humanitarian visa holders have been able to access apprenticeships, traineeships and skilled capital courses since 1 January last year, and from 1 January this year eligibility has been extended to refugees and asylum seekers who hold temporary or bridging visas which also grant working rights.
The newly increased access to training and employment opportunities also applies to the ACT’s additional humanitarian intake from Syria and Iraq. By providing newcomers to our country and our city with the training, learning support and skills recognition they need to help them gain and retain a job or build a business, these new measures will also have a flow-on economic benefit for Canberra by helping meet workforce shortages in a range of vital local industries. Importantly, the new measure aligns with the ACT government’s commitments from last year to support refugee and asylum seekers looking for employment and to maintain Canberra's reputation as a refugee welcome zone.
The ACT has made significant structural reforms to the VET sector in Canberra, including the development of best-practice, sustainable models to deliver and administer apprenticeships training. These reforms, which were developed under the current national partnership on skills reform, will expire on 30 June this year.
As the minister responsible for this sector I would like to see a commitment from the federal government that further VET funding will be available from 1 July 2017. It is disappointing that the federal government has yet to provide any commitment, any process, any time frame and indeed any assurance of any future funding to the VET sector across all jurisdictions. They have failed to outline what they plan to do to continue supporting the VET sector in Australia.
It is not unusual for national partnership funding to be the subject of intense scrutiny in the lead-up to each federal budget but normally the process also includes the commonwealth indicating to the states and territories at least a pathway for continuing discussion on the funding of key national funding arrangements. But in this case, as is noted in my motion, the current national partnership on skills reform from 2012 to 2017 committed $1.75 billion to vocational education and training across the states and territories.
The states and territories are left in a position where they do not know from 1 July this year whether that funding will continue in any way, shape or form. Given the absolute silence from the commonwealth on this, despite letters from all jurisdictions including the ACT, a couple of weeks ago a coalition of business groups including the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Australian Industry Group and the Business Council of Australia joined the states and territories to urge the commonwealth government to recommit to full funding of a new national partnership agreement focused on apprenticeships and enabling all governments to work together to deliver a national apprenticeships system that meets the needs of industry, young people and workers wanting to change industries.
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