Get Involved - Parliament

Skills for the Future

Published on: February 2021

Record: HANSARD-1323879322-115379

Skills for the Future

Ms GABRIELLE UPTON (Vaucluse) (16:59:37):

I move:

That this House acknowledges the Government's commitment to education in this State, in particular its commitment to building skills for the future.

I update the House on how the Government is building skills for the future for the people of New South Wales. COVID‑19 has had an enormous impact on communities across our State and skilling up is more important than ever. Our economy has undergone major changes. Businesses have had to innovate to survive and others have grown by taking advantage of the new opportunities that have opened up during COVID. Businesses have pivoted their operations in ways we could never have imagined; a great example is businesses which pivoted to provide vital personal protective equipment to our hospitals during COVID when supply lines were disrupted. Our world‑beating approach to COVID has made us a safe and open place to invest. New South Wales is now an even more attractive place for new businesses seeking skills to set up.

Turning ideas into jobs: Accelerating research and development in NSW Action Plan

The Government backed that in with its $250 million Jobs Plus Program, which will help support up to 25,000 jobs to 30 June 2022. Businesses that want to expand their footprint in New South Wales will get payroll tax relief for a period of up to four years for every new job where there are at least 30 net new jobs created. The Government will have training programs for specialised skills to support those new jobs into the future. Against that backdrop, earlier this year the Premier launched the . New South Wales has more great universities than any other jurisdiction, more startups and more great ideas. Looking back, we can see that Google Maps, pacemakers and the beginnings of wi‑fi were invented here in New South Wales.

The plan sets out how we can turn more of our great ideas to the skills we will need in this State, to make sure that we have new jobs and new industries. There are five priority actions that come from that plan. Some of those actions are directly relevant to the work that the Government is focused on in building the skills for the future. In consultations that I led with the public, startups told us that they need more skills in business and entrepreneurship. They wanted digital skills, cyber skills and skills in advanced manufacturing to grow their businesses. To make the action plan come to life, $2 million has been awarded for a matchmaking platform, which will make visible the places in New South Wales where startups can find those skills. The $24 million funded towards the small business innovation and research program will drive demand for people with skills for our future industries.

Those skills will support priority innovation precincts—Western Sydney Aerotropolis, Westmead and Tech Central—and special activation precincts across regional New South Wales. In fact, the Government is setting up a vocational training centre in the heart of the aerotropolis, focusing on advanced manufacturing. The Government's strong commitment to building skills for the future is tangible. It is going to maximise some amazing opportunities for New South Wales through the programs and announcements it has made. Unlike Labor, the Government supports a dynamic, competitive skills training market, with TAFE NSW as the comprehensive public provider.

The 2020‑21 budget demonstrates that commitment with a record investment of $2.7 billion into recurrent funding, $28 million into capex and $100 million into maintenance and new equipment for TAFE NSW facilities. That means there are more than 140 TAFE NSW campuses across the State that will get funding for plant, teaching equipment and maintenance. In December last year the member for Blue Mountains, who is not in the Chamber, described the $100 million as a pitiful recovery fund. Can you believe it? The member for Blue Mountains should hang her head in shame. She is not in the Chamber because she is so ashamed of trying to portray a big investment in skills training in her electorate as anything else but that. She should be thanking this Government for the strong result in her local community, and she should be celebrating that investment.

This Government's commitment to building skills for the future in regional New South Wales is also rock‑solid. This year's budget included $20 million of State and Commonwealth funding to deliver new connected learning spaces for at least 26 TAFE NSW campuses, including Albury, Dubbo and Griffith. Those digitally equipped spaces will include specialist teaching spaces, such as workshops and kitchens, and they will be located within existing campuses to extend the reach of training delivery to all parts of our State. Regional New South Wales will have eight Connected Learning Centres [CLCs]. In fact, the West Wyalong CLC opened last month. I know the member for Cootamundra, who is in the House, has seen firsthand the incredible impact of those facilities in her regional community and beyond.

Of course, we are getting on with the construction of the TAFE NSW Digital Technology Centre of Excellence and the Multi-Trades Hub at Meadowbank in the electorate of the member for Ryde, who is affectionately known as the "Minister for data". That TAFE facility is part of the Meadowbank Education and Employment Precinct that is going to bring education, employment and industry together in a way it never has been in this State. It will equip the young people of this State for the future. We also have the $80 million Construction Centre of Excellence at TAFE NSW Kingswood.

I notice the member for Londonderry has not championed that either. She should be thankful to the New South Wales Government for what is a historic investment in her electorate in skills for the future. We are simply getting on with things. Today the Government announced 20 new virtual vocational and educational training courses that will be offered to every government high school by 2022, equipping our school students with the skills for the future. Unlike Labor members, who will not even listen to what I am saying about our strong commitment, on this side of the House we have a strong and continuing commitment to building the skills for the future.

Mr JIHAD DIB (Lakemba) (17:06:49):

The Opposition proposes an amendment to the motion. I move:

That the motion be amended by adding the words "and calls on the Government to rule out any further privatisation of TAFE or the sale of TAFE campuses".

After listening to the member for Vaucluse champion TAFE NSW, I would imagine the Government would support the amendment. I do not want to pull anything out of the bag yet. I dare say the Government may vote against it. That would be quite funny because I am sure I heard the member for Vaucluse talk about how wonderful TAFE is and how much the Government values it. My challenge to members opposite is to support the amendment that calls for the Government to rule out any sales of TAFE campuses. Today when the member referred to 140‑odd campuses, I called out, "Today!" because in a couple of weeks Scone campus will come off that list. Scone TAFE campus is located in the heartland of "horse Australia". Scone TAFE was built to be an equine excellence centre. What does this Government propose to do? It will sell it off for less than the replacement cost. Why will it do that? Because it does not care about TAFE or skills. Government members talk about skills—anyone can deliver a great speech, cut a ribbon and take a photo—but when it comes to commitment, let us see the commitment in half an hour's time when we ask them to vote to rule out any potential sales.

New South Wales schools across all sectors have 1.2 million students. Every one of those students deserves the opportunity to have the best possible future. Some will go to university, some will go straight into a job and some will go to TAFE. We have to ensure that they have every possible opportunity. Obviously today's announcement is about ensuring opportunity. We will never disagree with opportunity but, as with many ideas from this Government, this idea has no substance behind it. Let us look at the Government's track record. For 10 years it has gone about the absolute ideological destruction of TAFE: 5,500 teachers gone, casual and temporary staff appointed, and over 100,000 fewer students. This Government talks the talk but cannot follow it up. In certain parts of New South Wales youth unemployment is up to 20 per cent. In the regions, one in five young people cannot get a job and cannot get into TAFE. Why would the Government be closing or selling TAFE campuses? Why would it reduce courses?

Enough about that. Let us return to the motion before the House. It sounds great in theory but I remind members opposite of things they may have forgotten. Once upon a time I was a school principal. We used to run pre‑apprenticeship courses with TAFE—a great opportunity for young kids who may have been struggling at school to do a couple of days at TAFE to complete a pre‑apprenticeship course, continue on to get a Certificate II or III, and then move into an apprenticeship. What did the Government do? It did what it loves to do: It cut the public education provider. What else did it do? It was going to offer vocational education and training courses, but where is the teacher training? Where is the support? Why is it so hard to get a school‑based traineeship or apprenticeship? It is simply because so much paperwork is involved. The Government can make an announcement about what it will do—today I was excited because I thought it would be next semester. No, it will be next year because this Government is so good at making announcements but falls down in following them through. We have seen that again.

Let's make it clear: Not every peg will fit into a round hole so we on this side want an education system that is inclusive, provides an opportunity for everyone and gives them the best chance. Those opposite say, "We will offer only these courses and that is the end of it." What is the Government doing to cut youth unemployment and to provide courses? What is the Government doing to ensure that kids who cannot do their HSC at school can get to a TAFE? What if someone wants to do tiling on the far North Coast—where do they go? Why does the Government continue to cut courses in areas of massive skills shortage? We know there is a skills shortage. Responsibility for that rests squarely at the feet of this Government. It seems to have woken up. This is not a plan; it is a rectification of what the Government has done wrong. It is a rectification after 10 years of abuse of the TAFE system—a rectification after the Government runs down a public education provider and then sees the error of its ways. This Government is all about spin. We want to see fewer people talking about how well they will do. We want to see the proof of the pudding. The Government has not shown it to us yet.

Ms FELICITY WILSON (North Shore) (17:12:07):

I thank the member for Vaucluse for introducing this public interest debate. She has put her money where her mouth is when it comes to investing in skills for our nation and for New South Wales. Recently she announced an action plan to accelerate R&D in this State. The member worked with some of the State's most eminent minds in research and development to shape an innovation action plan for the future. In moving the motion, the member acknowledges this Government's investment in building skills for the future right across the spectrum—from the vocational education and training sector through TAFE, high schools, primary schools, even our early learning centres, all the way through to our universities, and to learning and skills innovation on the job. We need to create that ecosystem in New South Wales to ensure that we continue to innovate.

As the member said, Australia is known for a wide range of outstanding innovations and inventions. For instance, members may know that wi‑fi was invented across the bridge in Marsfield in northern Sydney. Great, world‑changing things are not invented only in the CBD. In this nation we can harness the skills in our population and give people the capacity to make these innovations. I acknowledge what the member for Vaucluse has done and continues to do in this space. This debate is about how we are skilling the workforce for the jobs of the future. In recent years our State has faced unprecedented challenges. Drought has affected almost the entire State and has had significant impacts on agricultural production, our workforce and our broader regional economies. Then we had the devastating bushfires that, as everyone knows, tore apart communities in many areas of New South Wales. That had an ongoing effect on regional tourism and forestry sectors overnight. Now we all face the damaging economic impacts of COVID‑19, with businesses and workers across the State feeling the effects of the necessary health measures we have put in place to keep people safe. In response to COVID‑19 we introduced a range of fee‑free short TAFE courses. Some 21 of those courses are in place in areas such as health, business and IT, coding, cybersecurity and different elements of leadership, which gave people whose employment was impacted—people who lost their jobs, had their hours reduced or been stood down—the ability to upskill or re‑skill. I am pleased to report that over 115,000 people had enrolled in those courses by the end of July 2020. The New South Wales Government has also offered fee-free courses to bushfire-affected communities to empower local communities to rebuild or retrain.

To date over 2,500 people have enrolled in free bushfire courses, including chainsawing, environmental work, fencing, tree felling and white card. The Government has also offered drought‑affected communities multiple fee‑free training opportunities to help people upskill and re‑skill. On each occasion the Government has risen to the challenge of skilling our workers to manage the immediate impacts, as well as ensuring that as a State we are best positioned to take advantage of the opportunities to come. Whether you are getting your first job, a new job or a better job, now is the time to upskill. The Government is providing opportunities across the State, with many thousands of fee‑free courses available. The 2020‑21 skills budget demonstrates the Government's commitment to helping our communities recover. It has $2.7 billion in recurrent funding, which is a 17.6 per cent increase on last year and includes $318.6 million over two years for JobTrainer. The New South Wales Government will match the almost $160 million provided by the Commonwealth Government. We are delivering over 100,000 free training places under the package, which is a key component of the Premier's COVID‑19 recovery plan.

To date we have delivered more than 15,000 places, with many to come. The package is about supporting job seekers and people who have lost their jobs as a result of COVID‑19. It is also helping school leavers transition to further education or work. I encourage anyone who is thinking about upskilling or re‑skilling to take up the great opportunities offered by JobTrainer. In addition to those great opportunities, this morning members in this place heard the Government's announcement of 20 new virtual Vocational Education and Training courses that will be made available to every New South Wales Government high school by 2022. In addition to the existing face‑to‑face VET, year 11 and 12 students will have the opportunity to study teacher‑led, digitally‑enabled virtual TAFE NSW courses that will give them in‑demand skills for the workplace while also contributing to their HSC and ATAR. Those courses will help students build skills across emerging industries such as advanced manufacturing, technology and engineering. They are real jobs with real futures for the people of New South Wales to thrive in a post‑pandemic economy; they are the skills of the future.

Ms LIESL TESCH (Gosford) (17:17:26

): This public interest debate is about the future of our nation. Under a Federal Liberal Government and State Liberal Government in New South Wales, we have seen disastrous education results on a global scale, with massive drops in our Programme for International Student Assessment [PISA] results, TAFE land sold, course hours crushed, online pop‑up TAFEs replacing face‑to‑face teaching and a whole bunch more privatisation. The Scone TAFE campus is about to be shut down. I have asked the Minister to commit to not selling our TAFE land on the Central Coast. We will see what happens when we vote on that today. Under Labor, TAFE NSW was respected as an institution to educate our community and upskill our workforce. Under the Liberal Government, we are hearing cries of skills shortages but, at the same time, there is privatisation across the State and more than 5,700 staff have been sacked. Central Coast students have seen their local staff numbers cut, courses slashed and class hours shortened—not just in our community but across the State.

Today I thank TAFE teachers, who have not been happy at all because they have had to force their courses into the shorter periods that they have to teach. Youth unemployment on the Central Coast under the Liberal Government has always been double figures. I thank my chambers of commerce, which have been coming to me crying out about skills shortages. We are seeing further and further reduction of what is being taught in TAFE. It is horrible that we have had to import people from overseas to fill our skills gap because we do not have the people in our community. It has been 10 years of this Government and it is a sad state of affairs. The World Economic Forum has identified the top 10 skills of increasing value to future workplaces as creativity, emotional intelligence, complex problem solving, judgement and decision‑making, cognitive flexibility, critical thinking, people management, coordinating with others, service orientation and negotiation. Those are all skills for the future but, at the same time, under State and Federal governments, we have seen our PISA results plummet compared with other OECD countries.

We are now below average in maths and we tumbled down global rankings in reading and science. Over the past three years our scientific literacy has declined, particularly in New South Wales, with more low performers and fewer high performers in what is the biggest drop since testing began. I also point out that overall our most disadvantaged students were three years behind the most advantaged ones. Despite the celebration in Federal Parliament of the apology, the gap between Indigenous and non‑Indigenous students continues to widen. Surely this should be a wake‑up call for the Liberal State and Federal governments because historically we have been above average. That means our kids are not getting the skills they need to cope in a globalised world. I encourage the education Minister to drop in and visit teachers across New South Wales to gain a good understanding of what happens. She should do that not on the posh day when she is cutting ribbons and getting the photo but on a real day when the teachers are in the classroom, run off their feet with all sorts of paperwork, personal planning profiles, individual student profiles, recording the supports provided to kids with diverse needs, managing behaviour, managing family crises, writing up behaviour records and rewriting programs—which will be obsolete next year when we get a new curriculum—completing daybooks, following up assessments and N awards.

Mr Jihad Dib:

They must be tired.

Ms LIESL TESCH:

I know! Seriously, I know that they come home without really having the time they need to prepare the detailed lesson plans that our individual students need. In New South Wales a number of teachers are teaching out of area in those future subjects. We do not have engineers in our classrooms teaching engineering studies, nor do we have software designers or multimedia specialists. We are about to be thrown another 20 new courses, where some teacher somewhere has to learn the course, write the curriculum, write the programs, organise the excursions and organise the contacts with the other places as well. We must listen to our teachers in the classroom about what their needs are and how they are managing to deliver the best that our kids need.

This debate is about skills for the future but the Government has promised 100 schools that have not yet been delivered. It is alright to talk about skills for the future but we do not even have a school in a whole bunch of these communities. Gregory Hills, Marsden Park, Edmondson Park and South Nowra do not have the schools they were promised. It has been eight years and we soon might be getting a hole in the ground in Wyong for a school. Realistically, I encourage the education minister and the Minister responsible for TAFE to go and visit schools—on the ground, grassroots—to see what is going on in our classrooms to help deliver the skills for the future that our kids need today and our workplaces needed yesterday.

Ms STEPH COOKE (Cootamundra) (17:22:26

): I update the House on how the Government is providing access to the skills of the future for people in regional and rural New South Wales. One major way that we are delivering on this commitment is through the TAFE Connected Learning Centres [CLCs], which are state‑of‑the‑art, digitally‑equipped campuses that utilise technology to expand access to training in the regions. TAFE NSW has already opened CLCs in many locations across New South Wales, including Quirindi, Glen Innes, Tenterfield, Coonabarabran, Bega, Narrandera, Deniliquin, Corowa, Bourke, Grenfell, Singleton, Yamba, Murwillumbah, Scone and, most recently, West Wyalong in my electorate. We have seven more underway in Nambucca Heads, Byron Bay, Hay, Jindabyne, Batemans Bay and Cobar.

TAFE is one of the most dynamic education providers in the country, focusing on producing graduates with the skills to be workforce-ready. As a TAFE graduate I can attest to this: I have a diploma in floristry, which I had to work hard for. I might get to that later. Those educational hubs enable students to study courses never before offered at their local TAFEs. They utilise remote learning, practical training, technology and state‑of‑the‑art study spaces to enhance the educational opportunities available at a local level. They are not shopfronts, as they have been called at times by those opposite. I encourage them to have a look at what a CLC delivers for people in small communities such as Grenfell, with a population of 2,200 people or West Wyalong with a population of less than 4,000 or Narrandera with 5,500 people.

I reject any criticism of CLCs. That criticism can only come from people that do not understand what it is like to live in a rural area and try hard to access the education that you would like to pursue, ideally without leaving home to do so. The truth is that they are game-changing facilities for communities otherwise impacted by the tyranny of distance. You only have to visit to see how much they lift our remote communities. They are state‑of-the-art educational facilities that help keep our towns alive. TAFE has long delivered education in regional New South Wales. However, the traditional facilities have been restricted by geography when offering courses to a spread out and diverse population. CLCs solve this problem. They eradicate the inequity of accessibility experienced by regional and remote communities. They have opened up opportunities in the small communities of the Cootamundra electorate. I cannot say how much they are valued in our communities.

In Narrandera we opened our CLC in August 2018. The $4.76 million facility offers courses in drone essentials, certificate IV in commercial cookery and a diploma in business administration. Before the CLC was opened, people had to travel 200 kilometres round trip to Wagga Wagga to access those courses. The $4 million CLC at Grenfell has 20 new courses this year, including agriculture, business, early childhood education, care and tourism, which are all vital educational courses to set up our people and our towns for the future. Just this month, as I mentioned, we opened alongside the Minister the $6.6 million investment at West Wyalong. I committed to that project at the last election and I am proud that we have delivered it.

The point relating to my own experience there was that I had the opportunity at that opening to do a floristry demonstration for a class of 10 people who had signed up to do floristry in West Wyalong. It was wonderful to do that because when I did my diploma, I had to travel from Young to Sydney, week in, week out for almost two years. It was very difficult on me, my family and my business. To think that floristry could be offered in a small place such as West Wyalong and beyond is fantastic. I encourage those opposite to come out to a small community and see the difference that the CLCs are making and the opportunities that they open up. It is about setting up our communities for the future.

Ms ANNA WATSON (Shellharbour) (17:27:35):

I find it the ultimate act of hypocrisy for the member for Vaucluse to stand up here, beat her chest and do a victory lap around this Parliament on the Government's TAFE reforms and education in this State. It is appalling and obscene that the member even has the cheek to stand here and talk about it. I go back a hundred years or so, back to the 1830s actually when TAFE was founded in 1833. The Sydney Mechanics School of Arts was at the forefront of the New South Wales TAFE system, offering a mechanical drawing class. Then we skip down to 1883 and there were skill shortages, which were dealt with in an appropriate way. It was driven by the union movement, which is something that I did know, but I did not know to what extent. It was the union movement throughout the early 1900s that ensured that we had a TAFE system to fill those shortages in New South Wales.

It is obvious to me now why those opposite do not like TAFE, like they do not like universal healthcare; it kind of goes hand in hand. Whenever those opposite see anything that is run by a government, they immediately say, 'We must privatise this, quick. We cannot have the Government running this; it is too hard." Skip to 2016, five years after the Government came into power. That is when we started to see the destruction of TAFE in New South Wales. Those opposite had a vision—and boy, did they have a vision! I have only got to look at my own TAFE at Dapto, once a thriving TAFE with almost 1,000 students, over 100 teachers, in the middle of Dapto CBD, close to a train station, running all sort of courses for people within the Illawarra and surrounds. What did those opposite do? They gutted it. They chopped its head off and gutted it like a blue fin tuna—just gone. No more TAFE—gone. Instead, what did we get? We got a little shopfront down the road that does not even have a toilet—no bathroom. Just a little shopfront, a little computer and a couple of little pamphlets: That is what it has been reduced to. For those opposite to preach to us about TAFE and skill shortages is an absolute joke.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER:

Order! I want to hear the member for Shellharbour.

Ms ANNA WATSON:

We have seen what the Government has done recently at Scone. Those opposite have sold off that state-of-the-art TAFE campus for less than what it is worth. That tells you everything about what those opposite think about TAFE in New South Wales. Only about 2,400 school-based apprenticeships are on offer in New South Wales and those opposite think that is okay. In my electorate, families cannot afford to go to TAFE. The fees are too high, even if there is a HECS debt.

Mr Jihad Dib:

It's the same in western Sydney.

Ms ANNA WATSON:Time expired.

It is the same across New South Wales, particularly in western Sydney, where people are really struggling. I will give an example. A couple of years ago a family came to my office. their son wanted to do an assistant in nursing course. The cost of that course over three years was $26,000. I do not know too many families that have a spare $26,000 lying around to do a TAFE course. But that is okay in those opposite's eyes; it is progress. It is absolutely obscene. Those opposite talk about the chronic skill shortages after the damage they have done. They say that the CLCs and changes to the TAFE system are okay. Then there were all those dodgy providers. Remember that? We privatised everything and we had all these dodgy training providers. Families lost all their money and came out with no training certificates and no online learning. It was a scam. What did we hear from those opposite? It was crickets—Not a thing. What the New South Wales Liberal Government has done is generational theft and I ask the Premier: Are you proud of that Premier? []

Dr JOE McGIRR (Wagga Wagga) (17:32:50):

I thank the member for Vaucluse for her motion and the member for Lakemba for his amendment. This is a very important topic. It goes to the heart of the future of our regions. We are facing a significant skills shortage in our regions and we have an education sector that seems to have lost its way. Reforms to the higher education sector over the past decade have seen a large increase in the number of school leavers going to university. Has that been the best outcome? It seems to have devalued our vocational education sector. It seems to have created a mindset in our schools that values and encourages a university pathway away from our communities.

The rush to university might be good for university enrolment, but it is not necessarily good for the vocational skills that we need in our communities. A recent survey in my region by Regional Development Australia-Riverina has identified that more than three-quarters of the companies surveyed face real skills shortages. Among those are agriculture, forestry, fishing, manufacturing, accommodation and food services, healthcare, professional and technical services, rental, hiring and real estate. Those are the skills that we are missing but are those skills being provided? There is a real risk that they will not be.

I am concerned that at a time when we are experiencing real gaps in our workforce that are constraining our growth we are encouraging young people to study irrelevant degrees at university away from regional and rural communities. That is why TAFE and the VET sector is so critical to our future. For decades TAFE has been recognised as a leader when it comes to vocational education in New South Wales, particularly in regional and rural communities, where it has maintained a real presence despite market forces. Apprenticeships and education in regional and rural areas provide a future for our young people and we must offer young people in regional and rural areas education and work opportunities. Without those opportunities young people are forced to travel to the cities for their careers.

That is vocational education and TAFE, but I do not want to restrict my comments just to that because I believe the university sector has a role to play here as well. Institutions like Charles Sturt University were set up to create opportunities for young people to study in regional areas. They are perfectly positioned to offer opportunities to students in regional heartlands and to forge links to their home communities. But in our market‑based approach now and with the pressures on universities and the opening up of caps, the focus seems to be away from the regions; the focus seems to be on an outcome related purely to profit rather than to the benefit of our communities. It is true that the COVID pandemic has affected universities, and of course Charles Sturt University is no different; it is faced with cost-cutting measures that include rationalisation and staff cutbacks, but we need to ensure that those rationalisations do not come at a cost to future would-be students and a cost to our regional and rural communities. The key is the link to our local communities.

Before I conclude I refer to a recent report of the upper House Portfolio Committee No. 3 into the future of tertiary education, which made an interesting recommendation that I would like the Government to look at. The committee recommended that the New South Wales Government develop a model of precinct or industry cluster planning to maximise the potential of its education, health, transport and regional development investments that are linked to universities, TAFE and private tertiary providers. This is a real opportunity for our regional communities. In my electorate, for example, there are two such opportunities. One is a health and knowledge precinct that the local council has formed around our health providers but which has brought together the University of New South Wales, the University of Notre Dame, Charles Sturt University and TAFE. The idea is that by linking them in a precinct with health providers we can map out a career that goes from school, through vocational education and university, to skill people who will continue to work in our communities and for our communities.

In the special activation precinct in our region there is another opportunity for TAFE and Charles Sturt University to cooperate and I encourage them to continue to work together, co-locate, link to the special activation precinct and team up so that we have that pathway from schools, through vocational education, to jobs in our community. The key to this is a joined-up system—a pathway for our young people so that education is in place to provide the right skills for our communities and the right future for our young people.

Ms GABRIELLE UPTON (Vaucluse) (17:37:54):

In reply: I thank the members representing the electorates of North Shore, Cootamundra, Lakemba, Gosford and Shellharbour and the very thoughtful member for Wagga Wagga—as he is present in this Chamber—who said the only sensible things that were said on the opposite side of the House. What we heard today is just typical Labor. We heard the hyperbole. What did the member for Lakemba say? He said there had been 10 years of abuse to TAFE.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER:

Order! I want to hear the member for Vaucluse. I call the member for Shellharbour to order for the first time. I call the member for Shellharbour to order for the second time.

Ms GABRIELLE UPTON:

The biggest contribution to this debate from the member for Lakemba was that there had been 10 years of abuse to TAFE. The member for Lakemba says that it is all about the spin. The member for Shellharbour says that it is appalling. That type of hyperbole is not borne out by the facts—Labor likes to use that kind of rhetoric.

Ms Anna Watson:

Don't you like the truth?

Ms GABRIELLE UPTON:

No, it is rhetoric, and it is not borne out by the facts. What you guys have got to realise—sorry—is that your rhetoric does not match the facts. You have not understood the investment into your local communities. Take the member for Gosford.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER:

Order! I call the member for Gosford to order for the first time. The Clerk will stop the clock. The member for Vaucluse will resume her seat. Last week I had removed from the Chamber the member for Shellharbour—I thank her for owning up.

Ms Anna Watson:

I'm so nice.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER:

You are, yes. If the member for Shellharbour, the member for Gosford or the member for Lakemba keep interjecting, it will happen again.

Mr Jihad Dib:

Point of order—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER:

The member for Wagga Wagga is sitting in silence. Members should learn from the member for Wagga Wagga. Does the member for Lakemba have a point of order?

Mr Jihad Dib:

Yes, it is to that point. The member opposite—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER:

What is the standing order?

Mr Jihad Dib:

—incites people on this side of the Chamber. We have been quite respectful and fairly quiet, but then the member for Vaucluse decided to throw barbs and make it personal and I think it is understandable that people respond. As for the member for North Shore, no-one really asked for her opinion on this, given that members were not talking—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER:

I thank the member for Lakemba. I have heard enough. With one minute and 30 seconds left for debate, the member for Vaucluse will continue.

Ms GABRIELLE UPTON:

To make this personal, let us look at what has gone into the electorate of Gosford. A share of $100 million has gone into Gosford. The fact is that there is a commitment to the campus there. That $100 million was shared between Gosford, Ourimbah and Wyong. I can tell those opposite what that went to. I have a note here that tells me that at Gosford it went to two industrial gearboxes, nail chairs, large trolleys, a kitchen refurbishment, a commercial oven, and so it goes on. That is the reality of the Coalition's investment into TAFE in New South Wales.

In my remaining minute I want to talk about the skills for the future, which is what the member for Wagga Wagga spoke about. It is about joined up skills. It is about some of the things we spoke about. It is about the announcement we made today where kids in schools will be given the opportunity to learn skills for the future at HSC level and get credit for it. It is about university students being able to get the opportunity to gain TAFE qualifications while they are studying at university, to make that training real, and to make them readily employable. This is about the innovation that the member for Wagga Wagga spoke about, and it is about the work that this Government is doing. We are strongly supporting TAFE with $100 million in this year's budget and we are creating new ways to respond to some of the challenges that are on the table, which I spoke about in my opening remarks. The member for Wagga Wagga has met with the Minister for Skills and I understand his particular concerns are being addressed by the Minister.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER:

The question is that the amendment be agreed to.

The House divided.

Ayes40

Noes45

Majority5

Amendment negatived.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER:

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Motion agreed to.