Address to University of Sydney and Western Sydney Business Connection Luncheon

Thanks very much, Kirsten, for that very generous introduction. And thank you, Brendon, for hosting us all today.

I want to begin my remarks by joining each of you in acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which we are gathered and pay my respect to elders past, present and those who are emerging.

When I was sitting there thinking about my remarks and their context, I noted, I guess, a couple of paths not taken. Brendon, you showed me that it’s possible to be a successful lawyer and a functioning human being. I’m not sure that I could have done either of those things, to be honest, as a very ex-lawyer. And, Kirstin, you showed that it’s possible to have been involved in Young Labor and have a successful career making a change in the lives of others. I’m really thrilled to be able to spend some time on this stage following you, having admired both the work that you do and the way you go about doing that work.

I’m also thrilled to be here in Western Sydney. Now, I don’t have an introductory video like Sydney Uni does, nor can I claim a long and deep association with Western Sydney, being a Melbournian born and bred. I have, however, been to Parramatta 11 times in the two-and-a-bit-years since the Albanese Government was formed, so I feel I’m on my way towards developing a little bit of an understanding about this absolute social and economic powerhouse that drives so much of Australia’s economy.

And I want to reflect a little bit on that in my remarks, but I want to touch on really a slightly different three Ps than the usual. The first one is purpose, the second is partnership, and the third one is place, drawing together my role and the extraordinary part of our country where we are gathered today.

In terms of purpose, I feel enormously privileged to have the role I have in the Albanese Government, thinking about the skills needs we have as a nation and the skills needs that individual Australians have and trying to build a bridge between those two things. Recognising that building the skills that Australians have is both fundamental to securing our national prosperity but also to deal with the distribution of that prosperity, ensuring that every member of every one of our communities has the capacity to gain the skills, to gain the employment they want and, more importantly, the life that they want for themselves and for their families.

I feel it is an incredible privilege to try and build that bridge. And I do so having spent just over two years as Australia’s Immigration Minister, the reason I came to Parramatta on very many occasions.

And the other thread around purpose that I really want to touch upon very, very briefly – noting that I’m going to leave Tony Burke to do this job now – is to say that this part of Western Sydney – indeed, pretty much all of Western Sydney – is both a microcosm of how the world should be and the very best of modern Australia.

But it’s also still a work in progress. I firmly believe that your cultural diversity is our greatest strength. It is a super power that no other nation on the planet has. The challenge for us is to ensure that that diversity is reflected everywhere that matters in Australian society, and I’m pleased to have had a responsibility in working towards that goal in the past. I’m pleased to carry on that responsibility right now through some of the programs for which I am responsible.

And when I think about how I go about that – the last bit of the purpose piece – is to recognise something that is at the very core of this excellent report that Deloitte have put forward, and I do look forward to the discussion around it – and that is to recognise that nine out of 10 jobs in the Australian economy that are being generated right now require post-compulsory qualifications. That is something that I believe is beginning to be embedded into the consciousness of Australians.

What’s not so clear – and I say this with deference particularly to my friends at Sydney uni – is that half of those jobs don’t require a degree; they require a trade qualification. I don’t think that message has been effectively communicated yet. It’s something that I try to do each and every day. And it is something that leaps off the page when I think about the extraordinary economic opportunities that are located in Western Sydney, particularly as we think about what the airport might mean for the other third of this great Australian city.

So when I think about my role, I think about that at the very highest level, about trying to identify the barriers, whether they are personal or structural, that are preventing Australians from acquiring these qualifications that are fundamental to them securing the life they want for themselves but also absolutely vital for us to meet our national economic goals.

A big part of that is set out in the extraordinary work of my friend Jason Clare, the Minister for Education, who I’ll be catching up with in a couple of hours with our Indian counterparts to build on many of the themes that I’ll be touching on here as we seek to deepen that critical social and economic relationship.

The Accord vision for Australia really is how the Australian Government responds to the need for the upskilling of our population. And I think it really is also the critical enabler of a vision which sees the two post-school pathways as equal. We are building the architecture towards that with the ATEC and vehicles like that. But fulfilling those Accord aspirations is absolutely critical to the work that I do every day, and I’m pleased that I get to do so on really solid foundations, because after a long period of neglect, thanks to the work of my predecessor Minister Brendon O’Connor, we have architecture that can support these great national goals and can deliver through partnership the sort of outcomes I think we want to see, particularly in places like this.

It’s impossible to overstate the significance of the National Skills Agreement –

SPEAKER: Attention please. This is a test of the emergency warning system. Please disregard the alarms. This is testing only. No action is required.

GILES: Well, let’s see if there’s a non-test. My staff organise this when I’ve been talking for too long. So I’ll take that as an invitation to hurry up…

But I want to talk about the National Skills Agreement really briefly for a couple of reasons. It illustrates this fundamental point that really everything that’s done in the skills and training space in our federation is done in partnership – partnerships most obviously between national and the states and the territories around funding, but partnerships also bringing to bear the experience and understandings and needs of industry and of working people as well.

While we’ve got that agreement in place we have a vehicle to deliver on these objectives and connect them to the needs of communities too. Fundamentally I think of Fee-Free TAFE as something that has emerged from this agreement. More than 500,000 Australians have now chosen to lift their skills through embarking on the promise of Fee-Free TAFE. I met a number of students down the road in Lidcombe with my friend Sally Sitou earlier having a door open to them that was previously closed and filling gaps not just in Australia’s skills matrix but that which is found here in Western Sydney as well.

We’ve also put in place some other architectural features which are worth touching on briefly. The existence of Jobs and Skills Australia enables us to understand not just the labour market in Australia now but to think about those future needs so that we can get on with planning. Whether that planning is at an individual business level, at a local government level or, of course, at a national level, so that we can ensure that the temporary skills shortages which have bedevilled the Australian economy at large and Australian businesses for some time can be just that – temporary skills shortages – not structural failings of our economy and our labour market.

Linked to Jobs and Skills Australia is the equally important role of the Jobs and Skills Councils, putting in place tripartite partnerships so that we can build another bridge between the overall needs of our economy and the understanding that’s felt at a workplace level. Making sure that the training packages are fit for purpose, particularly in those areas of national significance which are playing out in so many of our regional economies. A Future Made in Australia, a transition to net zero, all of these things don’t just require more workers – like the 42,000 electricians that we need to train – but to ensure that the training people are receiving is fit for future purposes, not simply for the jobs of today or yesterday.

This approach of bringing people together is why I like to talk about partnerships as being absolutely fundamental. The Commonwealth Government has bold aspirations in this portfolio for what it can do for individuals, for communities and our national economy, but we recognise that everything we do in this space we do in partnership.

Now, there’s more to be done through those partnerships. There’s a big piece of work to be done right now around ensuring that more Australians can take up an apprenticeship and more of those Australians who take up an apprenticeship can complete it. That hasn’t been happening at a satisfactory level to date for a variety of reasons – understanding why that has been the case is key to putting in place the right incentives for businesses to hire and engage and for young people to take on those roles is fundamental.

We've also got a really big challenge around the country ensuring that every Australian is well equipped to participate effectively in the economy and the workforce on their terms. Three million Australians – that is one in five working-age Australians right now don’t have the foundational skills they need to be effective economic contributors. That’s our failing, not theirs. The work that’s done, we might hear a little bit about a SEE provider – Skills for Education and Employment – being able to bridge that gap, and I’m real proud that our government has opened the door for people to obtain these foundational skills, including digital skills, for anyone over the age of 15 who is not in schooling so that people can have the opportunity to participate in the economy and the great opportunities that are found within about a year. That will be, again, built through partnership.

The last point I want to touch on is fundamental to why we’re here – and that’s place. Australia is a diverse country in every respect – geographically as well as culturally. What works in one part of the country may not work in others. The partnerships that I’ve talked about need to be focused with a sense of region and understanding that’s only found in those parts of the country. And right here, as I said at the outset, this is in many ways the engine room of Australian growth and the potential over the next few years and the coming decades is almost limitless.

One of the key constraints there now that infrastructure is up and running is finding the workforce. This report has got some very big numbers – one that’s nearly 700,000, the other that’s nearly 300,000. There’s a lot of work to be done. There’s got to be stronger partnerships to deliver on the promise of Western Sydney.

There’s a huge role for the national government in moving beyond the architecture that I’ve touched upon to making sure that these partnerships are firmly rooted in place, that the understanding that we have with the state government here in New South Wales – and I deeply value the close working relationship I have with Minister Whan – is about delivering the skills this community needs in the manner that people within this community want them to be delivered.

This will involve an ongoing commitment to listening. I said I’ve been to Parramatta 11 times in two years and two months as a minister. I think I’ve got to keep coming back over and over again. This is an incredibly dynamic region. For the Australian government to play its role, we’ve got fantastic local members – Dr Chalton here, Sally Sitou, Jason Clare, Ed Husic, Michelle Rowland and Tony Burke, of course, amongst others, Anne Stanley in Werriwa – I’m sure I’ve left someone out and I’m going to get in trouble – but they’re all fantastic advocates for their communities as well as in many cases senior members of the government.

What I’m concerned about doing in my role is to deepen the partnership at a local level, to make sure that I’m listening attentively to the needs of businesses, workers, and local government in these communities to make sure that the aspirations that are set out in the document that I’m part of launching today can be met. It’s a document that fundamentally is about people and understanding how we can build bridges between individuals’ aspirations and what government and education can offer. It’s always going to be an ongoing, iterative task.

I’m very pleased to have the opportunity to come down here to set out a little bit about how I go about my work and I hope that I can be invited back to have that homework marked in the future. Thanks very much.