Robertson Grant: Industry Training and Apprenticeships Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is subject to correctionRobertson Grant: Industry Training and Apprenticeships Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 05 November 2013. Volume:694;Page:14366. Text is subject to correction.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I rise on behalf of the Labour Party to support the first reading of the Industry Training and Apprenticeships Amendment Bill with some caveats which I will come to shortly. The Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment indicated a number of reasons and purposes for the bill but he failed to mention two or three particular areas that are of some concern to the Labour Party which we would like to see explored at the Education and Science Committee.It is timely for a relook at the legislation and regulation around apprenticeships and industry training. At no time in New Zealand’s history has it been more important that we have robust efficient and effective apprenticeship and industry training schemes. We have currently under way in Christchurch the most significant rebuild of any urban centre in New Zealand in our history. It requires a huge amount of skilled staff to be available. It requires ongoing training to be available above and beyond what is required in the normal day to day of the New Zealand economy. It is on that point that I want to make a couple of comments of context of my own in comparison to the context that the Minister gave. He is correct to say that a large amount of funding and support went into industry training and apprenticeships in the first decade of this century. In the case of apprenticeships that was because the National Government of the 1990s had completely undermined the apprenticeship system to the point that there basically was not one any more. The incoming Government in 1999 realised the folly of that move by the National Party and introduced the Modern Apprenticeships scheme. By the time Labour went out of Government in 2008 the scheme had had around 15000 people through it as Modern Apprentices. It was an excellent scheme for its time making up for a very very poor record from the National Government.At the same time there was a significant investment in industry training. Industry training is an important part of productivity in the workplace. It is a significant part of what businesses need to do to ensure that their workforce remains skilled and that they are able to take advantage of innovation develop new products and keep their businesses running well. So we want to see a large number of people in industry training.It is fair to say that there were some issues with the way in which industry training funding occurred during that period. The review that has been undertaken has highlighted a number of those. There has been significant change in the industry training sector as a result of that. But in reality when we look at the record of this Government what we see is that through until the beginning of this year there was a huge drop in the number of people undertaking apprenticeships—under National around a 20 percent drop in the number of people undertaking apprenticeships and around a 38 percent drop in those undertaking industry training. As I say some of that can perhaps be explained. But the huge drop in the number of apprentices is a massive wasted opportunity.I want to give some credit to the Hon Phil Goff. When he was Leader of the Opposition in the immediate aftermath of the earthquakes in Christchurch he said: “We need people training right now because when this rebuild starts or really gets under way in a couple of years’ time we as a country are going to need those people trained and ready to go.” But it did not happen. There was a continuing drop in the number of apprentices and in the number of industry trainees in the Canterbury region.Colin King: Who’s going to employ them Grant?GRANT ROBERTSON: Colin King says there is no one to employ them. That is the lack of vision that Colin King has. When the Labour Party went to the electorate in 2011 we said that we would take that money for the dole—money that people are being paid when they are on the dole—and give it to an employer to subsidise an apprenticeship because just sitting on your hands as the National Government did for 3 years and saying “We can’t help here; there is nothing we can do.” is not being a responsible Government. A responsible Government gets alongside business and says: “In the down times we are going to be here to make sure that people are being trained so that when the economy picks up and when the rebuild starts there will be trained apprentices.” But that is not the vision of this Government. It sits on its hands and it waits.What we now have is a slow lethargic response from the National Party to finally get itself going to have some kind of apprenticeship scheme. There has been a big increase in the number of apprentices and industry trainees this year. Finally the National Party has caught up with the importance of having apprentices and industry trainees on board but what a wasted opportunity over the last couple of years from this Government.That brings us to this bill the Industry Training and Apprenticeships Amendment Bill which as the Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment has said has a number of changes in it to the way industry training organisations operate. From the Labour Party’s perspective many of them are worthy of being looked at. We want industry training organisations focused on the delivery of training and the maintenance of skills standards. We think that they are the core roles of industry training organisations. I personally have never been a fan of prescribing the number of industry training organisations that there should be but I believe that some of the mergers that have occurred over the last couple of years have actually been quite sensible and are going to deliver better industry training standards. I do not think that saying that we are going to have eight or six or nine is the way to do it. It is about getting the industry training organisations together. This part of the legislation will be useful for that.I am also encouraged by the improvements around quality assurance. It is vital that the New Zealand Qualifications Authority is playing its role in making sure that the taxpayer investment here is of the highest standard and also that the delivery of training is meeting the needs of employers and indeed of trainees and employees. So we are pleased to see those changes.The area that is of significant concern to the Labour Party which the Minister did not speak very much about is clause 15 of the bill which inserts new sections 11A to 11F into the Industry Training Act on the funding of industry training organisations. New section 11A allows the Tertiary Education Commission to enter into funding agreements with non - industry training organisation persons to provide industry training. It runs through a series of things that can be done. Essentially that means that organisations that are not industry training organisations can start delivering industry training and receiving funding from the Tertiary Education Commission. This is to implement the idea—Colin King: What’s wrong with that?GRANT ROBERTSON: “What’s wrong with that?” says Colin King. Well is it not important Mr King that we have a high standard of industry training? Is it not important that there is consistency in industry training? But no what the National Government is proposing here is to reward its mates once again. So if a business comes along and says: “We do not want all of this palaver where we actually have to work with other people in the industry where we actually have to make sure that we have got some consistency and where there are some transferable skills being taught. Let us notworry about that.” Let us just have a business that says: “We are big enough. We are going to take the funding.” Well we have concerns about that on this side of the House.In fairness to the Minister he was up front about this when he announced the New Zealand Apprenticeships scheme and he did say that they would be looking to run a trial whereby non - industry training organisations were able to receive this funding—that is direct funding to a business to organise industry training. We are concerned about that because it is in the name—industry training. It is about the development of a workforce that can work across a range of businesses and that gets skills that are generic enough to be able to be used wherever they may end up in their career. We are concerned that this provision will put that at risk. We do not believe it is necessary. We think that industry training organisations are developing in such a way that they can meet the needs of business but we are prepared to send this bill to a select committee so that we can have this debate. It is a useful time to relook at the structure around industry training and apprenticeships and we look forward to the range of submissions that I believe will come in. But I do want to express concern about this. I think there are other clauses in the bill as well that need to be looked at and other issues in the industry training sector. I am very confident that those who will speak after me will raise some issues.I note one of those in closing which is that there is a useful clause in the bill that encourages industry training organisations to focus on the needs of Māori and other priority population groups in relation to industry training. I am sure my colleague Carol Beaumont will speak a little about the failure of this Government to engage one priority population group in industry training and apprenticeships and that is women. But with that we will support this bill to the select committee and look forward to ongoing debate.