Woods Megan: Industry Training and Apprenticeships Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWoods Megan: Industry Training and Apprenticeships Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 08 April 2014. Volume:697;Page:16951. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram):It is useful that we have come to the time to debate this bill in a very detailed way as we go through the Committee stage of the Industry Training and Apprenticeships Amendment Bill because the reason why Labour opposes this bill is really in the detail. So let me set out very clearly the two reasons that Labour opposes this bill. Both of these reasons are contained in Part 1 of this bill—specifically in clause 15 of the bill. The major problem with the bill as we see it is the proposal to allow organisations other than industry training organisations to be directly funded by the Government to organise and undertake industry training. That is our first major concern. Our second major concern with this piece of legislation is the proposal to remove the skills leadership function from our industry training organisations and what that is going to mean for the sector. We have some very real concern about what that will be.So if we have a look at clause 15 of this bill this is where a lot of the problems for us are embedded. It is also where a lot of the problems that the many many many submitters who came to the Education and Science Committee and voiced their opposition to this bill and their concern with this piece of legislation focused their attention. We have spoken at previous readings of this bill about how we had submitter after submitter from a range of organisations come in and tell the committee that this was not a bill that was going to fulfil the purposes that it set out in its purpose statement to do—that this was not a bill that was going to enhance industry training in New Zealand and add to the environment that we have.If we have a look at clause 15 and the proposal that persons other than industry training organisations may receive funding for industry training this is nothing more than this Government’s privatisation agenda in the education sector. This is rolling out privatisation into our industry training sector and siphoning out bits of money. Does the industry want this? No. The industry came and very clearly told members at the select committee that this was not something it saw as adding anything to how we deliver skills training in this country.So direct funding is going to bypass industry training organisations and introduce competition. The tender process is already under way even before we pass this legislation I note.If we take one example to consider how this legislation is going to play out for a given industry there is a very large player in the aged-care sector that is currently tendering to have direct funding under this legislation and to be something other than an industry training organisation that delivers the skills training. The danger here is that what we are going to have is delivery of skills training that suits that business rather than suiting the industry as a whole. It will be training that is directed at one particular business. Some people might say that there is no problem with a business training to suit the needs of its business but the problem for us is that this is using public money to do it. It is not simply a private organisation deciding that it is going to do some professional development with its workforce and train those people to suit the needs of its business. This is using industry training money that can potentially be put into the business of one person.The other major problem that we have with this is that private providers of industry training can cherry-pick the businesses that they deal with. We heard very clearly from the submitters who came to us at the select committee that one of their major concerns about this is that small and medium sized enterprises would miss out under this model and that private providers of industry training would go to the very easy business model of dealing with large organisations. Business-to-business costs would be much lower and it would be a much cleaner business model for them to deal with. But when it came to the very real need to be delivering industry training for our small and medium sized enterprises we heard that this is not going to work. On this side of the Chamber we believe that denying good industry training and good skills training to our small and medium sized enterprises is not a way forward for a better New Zealand.We know that so many of our young people are entering small construction firms small manufacturing businesses—all kinds of smaller organisations—with say fewer than 50 employees. Actually yesterday I had the good fortune to visit one of these construction companies in the Wigram electorate and I talked to the owner about what it needed through skills training. What it needs is a very clear plan of what skills training is and a strategic direction from the Government not a continuation of a privatisation agenda as in clause 15 of the bill which inserts new section 11A in the principal Act.We also have some further concerns about clause 15. It is not just concern about removing the ability to have direct funding going solely to industry training organisations; there is also the skills leadership role that industry training organisations currently fulfil. Under new section 11A in clause 15 what we have is the industry leadership function being withdrawn. Call us old-fashioned but on this side of the Chamber we think that industry has a role to play in determining what skills are needed by industry. We do not believe that the Government is the sole best person to make that decision. Government members of the select committee thought that they were much better placed to make decisions about what the needs of industry were in terms of its skills training than those who are on the ground working in the industries trying to build the houses trying to run manufacturing companies and trying to run aged care facilities. But no this is a Government that is so arrogant and so out of touch that it does not believe that those on the ground working in these industries should be funded to play a part in determining what skills are needed in this country. That produced a great deal of concern to us—as well as no need to cry over spilt water now that I have spilt mine.The concerns about Part 1 did not even stop with clause 15. Some other very real concerns were brought to us by the National Council of Women about what this legislation is really missing the opportunity to do. We have some woeful figures in this country around women’s participation in many of our trades in this country. The National Council of Women came to the select committee with a very elegant solution. It just asked for the word “women” to be included in a priority group of people who could receive skills training. Would Government members listen to that? No they would not. They are not willing to do anything to address the very real gender gap—and therefore pay gap—that we have because of our skills training.So for us on this side of the Chamber it is a real disappointment that the Government has not taken the chance to further enhance our industry training sector. In fact it has just pursued its ideological commitment to privatising our education system. Not content with charter schools and public-private partnerships and the tendering out of levels 1 and 2 funding within our polytechnic sector the Government is now seeking to fund money out of the public purse and into private companies through our industry training sector. This did not come as any great surprise to us because on this side of the Chamber we know that this is a Government that has no real commitment to apprenticeship training and skills training. It is a Government that has cut funding. It was a National Government that gave up on apprenticeships in the 1990s and that was yet another of the things that the Labour-led Government of 1999 had to reintroduce.We on this side of the Chamber have a real commitment to skills training and apprenticeships training. We certainly would not have done what this Government did and leave the bulk of the $42 million allocated for the Skills for Canterbury training sitting in the bank for 2 years while our young people went untrained. There is nothing in this legislation—there is nothing in this bill—that is going to turn that round. There is nothing to signal that this Government has a renewed commitment. Instead what we are seeing is a continuation of a walking away from the Government’s need to really back the fact that the way for New Zealanders and New Zealand to get ahead is for us to have comprehensive and good skills training in this country.I want to hear the Minister in the chair take a call and tell us why it is that the National Government does not think that industry should have a role in skills leadership. I would also like to hear from the Minister in the chair why it is that the Government thinks that despite what industry and all the players in the sector have told us private providers are better placed to deliver the training.