Robertson Grant: Industry Training and Apprenticeships Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Industry Training and Apprenticeships Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 18 March 2014. Volume:697;Page:16793. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central):The Industry Training and Apprenticeships Amendment Bill is one of those bills where there was an opportunity to get agreement across the House for support for the initiatives that lie behind here. There was a willingness or an acceptance in the Education and Science Committee that some streamlining was needed in our apprenticeship system that industry training organisations had needed to reform themselves and that there had been a period of time in which industry training organisations have themselves identified that things got a bit out of control in terms of the way they went about their work.There was the opportunity to put a piece of legislation in front of the House that came up with a consolidated clear New Zealand apprenticeship system that is supported by all parties in the House and also to ensure that industry training organisations are running effectively and efficiently and are governed in a way that is acceptable to the industries that they serve. Those were shared ideas across the committee but unfortunately Steven Joyce and the Government’s commitment to two silly ideological pieces of policy means that on this side of the House we cannot support this bill. I will come to those two pieces in a minute.In order to talk about the process of industry training and apprenticeships we need to take a couple of steps back. I welcome the fact that National has latterly worked out the importance of apprenticeships and industry training. This is the party that in the 1990s dismantled the apprenticeship system. It said: “We don’t want the apprenticeship system any more. We will get rid of it.” The damage from that decision has been felt throughout our trades and throughout our businesses in New Zealand over the last two decades because National dismantled the apprenticeship system. This is the system that brought people through businesses as a young apprentice. They learnt a trade which they then took out to the world. That went in the 1990s.Labour came in in the 2000s and we brought in the Modern Apprenticeships scheme. I am proud of that scheme. But I also recognise that the time had come to create a more coordinated system of apprenticeships. We had created a system where over 15000 people were in Modern Apprenticeships and from the 2009 Budget through to the beginning of 2013 2000 apprentices were lost in the system—2000 apprentices. Finally National had its apprenticeship reboot and finally it got some runs on the board. I congratulate National on catching up with that idea.But the reality is that unfortunately this legislation still bears the hallmarks of a party that does not properly get apprenticeships and industry training and that is what we see in the National Party. The two significant issues that prevent Labour from being able to support this bill are what is contained in new section 11 in clause 15 which is in fact the de facto privatisation of industry training. These new sections open up funding for industry training to non - industry training organisation bodies. Industry training organisations have been established in order to provide some kind of industry-wide qualification—something that is applicable across an industry. It is not about funding a business-specific skill or training. That should still be the job of a business. Just because industry training exists it does not abrogate the responsibility of an individual business to ensure that its workers are capable of doing the tasks that are in front of them.What industry training is about is making sure that we are equipping workers with skills that are applicable across an industry. What this new section does is open up the ability to directly fund bodies other than industry training organisations to organise and deliver industry training and that is de facto privatisation. It means that those businesses will be directly funded not only to arrange the training but to deliver it as well and that compromises it. But it compromises the whole point of industry training which is to provide those industry-wide qualifications.We also heard from the officials at the select committee that there was a desire for flexibility for employers in terms of industry training. That already exists. It is already completely possible for a business to move from one industry training organisation to another. In fact in the reorganisation of industry training organisations that has recently taken place there has been a significant amount of that. The flexibility is already there. That is a red herring. What this opening up of funding beyond industry training organisations will do is undermine those industry training organisations themselves. The people who will be able to go off and deliver industry training themselves are the big businesses. It is the small businesses left within the industry training organisations that will be weaker and that in turn will undermine their ability to deliver training. It is another example of National favouring big business against small business. It is favouring those members’ kind of idea of what a business is as opposed to the small businesses in New Zealand which actually need the support of industry training organisations.It was unbelievable in the select committee and I thank the Minister Sam Lotu-Iiga for mentioning the 30 submitters because all bar one of them said they did not want a bar of this opening up of the funding—all bar one. We were faced—Dr Megan Woods: Who was it?GRANT ROBERTSON: We will come back to who the one was. We were faced with the somewhat unusual situation of the Contractors Federation sitting down at the table after the Council of Trade Unions had given its submission and saying: “We agree with everything that the CTU has just said.” There was virtual unanimity that this opening up of industry training organisation funding to non - industry training organisations would undermine industry training.But there was one organisation that sort of came out for this. Business New Zealand is normally regarded as a great friend of the Government. This was its ringing endorsement of the opening up of funding: “Business New Zealand is cautiously supportive of proposed new section 11A … However such an approach must be independently evaluated to ensure that it results in learning outcomes linked to industry needs … The ability of ITOs to provide sustainable services to employers and apprentices must be maintained and enhanced …”. Business New Zealand really did not like it either. No one wanted this but this arrogant out-of-touch Government said: “We don’t care. We’re going to press ahead with this even though the entire industry training community said it did not want this.”This is a very bad idea and it is driven by ideology. It fits alongside Steven Joyce’s approach to the rest of the tertiary education portfolio—level 1 and 2 courses competitive tendering and extra funding for private training establishments while other parts of the system are not getting money. Steven Joyce ideologically does not believe in public education and unfortunately this is an extension of that. So we cannot support that part of the bill.The other significant area where Opposition parties have been unable to support this bill is the elimination of the skills leadership function from industry training organisations. We were told at the committee that the reason that this function was being taken away from industry training organisations was so that it would not be the responsibility of one part of the system but the responsibility of all those in the system except no one would actually be given the role of making sure it happens. A number of submitters came to the committee and said that the skills leadership role is important. Skills leadership is about identifying what the future skill needs will be and making sure that we are training people for the jobs that need to be done in the future. It is a vital role. Industry training organisations are brilliantly placed to play the leadership role there. No one really wanted it taken away but the Government is getting rid of it for some kind of nihilist fantasy whereby somehow there will emerge skills leadership.The Careerforce industry training organisation came to the committee and gave a great submission about what it had been doing in terms of skills leadership. It had just recently been working with Health Workforce New Zealand on the development of an unregulated health worker workforce strategy. That was it getting alongside the Government and saying: “This is how we will make sure that there is a future workforce in the health area that works for us.” It has been leading the review of qualifications in that area of the unregulated health workforce. That is its leadership role. It was mandated to do it in law and now that has gone away and we know and we heard at the committee that if industry training organisations are faced with restricted budgets and it is not in their mandate to do it they are not going to be able to do it and so skills leadership will go. On the grounds of the opening up of funding beyond industry training organisations and the lack of anyone being responsible for skills leadership we cannot support this bill. The Labour Party stands for a strong apprenticeship system and good-quality industry training. National does not.