Doorstop - Darwin

JO HERSEY, NORTHERN TERRITORY MINISTER FOR EDUCATION AND TRAINING: It’s great to be here today at Danala with the Federal Minister, Andrew Giles here, to announce the strengthening in the Aboriginal VET sector. The Federal Government has given $17.5 million. The NT Government has matched that $17.5 million in funding and it's a great thing to have that strengthening for the Aboriginal VET sector across the Territory. I was fortunate enough to have Minister Giles in Katherine a couple of days ago. We saw the new Dijan Aboriginal Training Centre that they've got in Second Street where they are delivering Cert III and IV in Aboriginal health practices. So this funding goes really well for strengthening our sector, and I'll hand to Minister Giles to make some more comments.

ANDREW GILES, MINISTER FOR SKILLS AND TRAINING: It's great to be here with Minister Hersey in Darwin, as we were in Katherine the other day. I was wearing a jacket in Katherine, and we'll see how long the jacket lasts today, Jo. This is a really significant announcement. It builds on two key themes that are part of the National Skills Agreement that brings the Commonwealth Government together with all state and territory governments. And it's about partnership between both jurisdictions, and it's also about Closing the Gap. This $35 million investment, as Jo said, $17.5 from the Commonwealth, $17.5 from the Northern Territory Government will make a huge difference towards making sure that every Australian can access the skills they want to do the jobs they need in their communities. This recognises that in First Nations communities there are ways of doing and ways of learning that we need to respect. And I was really privileged to be in Katherine at Dijan, a fantastic RTO that's only just got up and running, that's already making an impact. It's doing exactly what we want to see happen right across the Territory, and indeed across the country, by empowering First Nations people to deliver culturally safe and culturally appropriate understandings so that they can develop skills that people want to do jobs, whether it's in communities or in major urban settings.

This funding will make a real difference. It will build on a community of practice, and indeed these are the conversations we're about to have when we walk in to see the new building, to better understand how trainers are engaging with learners in ways that really make a difference. So this is an investment that's about partnership and it's about Closing the Gap. I'm really pleased to be in Darwin, to spend a bit of time in the Territory, thinking about how we can work more closely together to deepen a partnership to end a really big skills crisis that's been holding the Territory and Australia back for a long time. The National Skills Agreement is a vital way in which we address that, and I'm also really looking forward to spending some time with Minister Hersey who is kindly hosting us here, with all skills ministers from around the country to build on the achievements to date and to look forward to the future. Are there any questions?

JOURNALIST: You said this announcement will end the skills crisis. Will that happen, or is this just an announcement?

GILES: No, I said we're working to end the skills crisis. If you think about the investments that we've made, the $30 billion partnership that is the five-year National Skills Agreement, it's making a real difference. When we came into government just over three years ago, Australia faced the worst skills crisis in 50 years – the second worst of any advanced economies. This is having a huge impact and it has a bigger impact the further you get from inner Melbourne and inner Sydney. So it's important we have this conversation here. It has a bigger impact in regional and remote communities, it has a bigger impact when it comes to First Nations people. So this is another step forward in the partnership we have as our two governments in making sure that more people get more access to skills they want to do jobs in the community.

JOURNALIST: Which skills stream will this funding be part of?

GILES: Well, I think you'd have to look at different communities. And we're not prescribing the sort of skills, but I think we'll see a big impact in areas like we saw when we were in Katherine yesterday. Aboriginal community workers, health-based workers, care-based work, but we're not being prescriptive about that. That's obviously for the communities to build upon, for their RTOs and other providers to work with. It's about making sure that we have systems of learning that work for everyone.

JOURNALIST: What type of consultation have you had with Indigenous people to make sure that this money does what it's intended for?

GILES: There's two pieces to that answer and I will hand over to Minister Hersey, because this is a proposal that the Northern Territory Government have put, to answer these questions. This agreement is about us agreeing on some very broad principles between the Australian Government and all governments, one of which is Closing the Gap. One of the ways in which we do that is by having First Nations voices, through the Coalition of the Peak principally, embedded in our decision making as a group of ministers. But in terms of this proposal, what has happened is we've set out what we want to see from territory and state governments. The Territory Government put a proposal. I certainly believe we strongly met those principles. And maybe, Jo, you want to speak a bit about how you came to the proposal you put to us.

HERSEY: What was the question, sorry?

JOURNALIST: What kind of consultation has both governments had with Indigenous people to make sure that this money does what's intended for them?

HERSEY: Like we're just about to go into today, we have the VET Community of Practice where we listen to all of those stakeholders come into the room. We have many Aboriginal RTOs that we're about to meet with and go and have a chat with soon. So we've got ones like Dijan that we've just met, that is a couple of days ago, the new training provider. We've also got Bachelor, and there's many other, we've got ALPA out in the regions. So there's many of them, but they'll all be inside and we meet with them on a regular basis.

JOURNALIST: And which regions will the money be distributed to?

HERSEY: I think that money will be distributed right across the Territory. This is about strengthening the Aboriginal sector with their VET skills, so that's for right across the Territory.

JOURNALIST: And does that also mean that remote and regional VET [indistinct] facilities included in this proposal?

HERSEY: Sorry, what was the question?

JOURNALIST: Will this money make sure, how will you guys make sure that this money kind of goes to remote and regional facilities, educational facilities?

HERSEY: This is for strengthening the sector to make sure that we, as the Minister said before, that we are delivering in a culturally sensitive way to make sure that people feel that they can go to work each and every day and they're valued, and that we get more people through the sector.

JOURNALIST: Minister, you just mentioned a couple of skills, I think, around the health and welfare side of things. Will there be trades-based opportunities here too for everyone?

GILES: Definitely. And I might just go to the facilities question. I mean, this is really about building the workforce and building the community of practice. We've made some significant announcements about facilities, the mobile units that are up and running in large parts, generally in the central parts of the Territory. And of course we made a significant commitment that the Prime Minister announced that Garma, $31 million for mobile TAFE facilities, and I'm sure will be of great interest to the Northern Territory Government in the coming days. This is not about prescribing the sort of skills that we've taught, it's about enabling them to be taught appropriately.

JOURNALIST: Do you think the Commonwealth gives the Territory a fair go when it comes to job development and job creation? We've just had an incident where a hotel application was withdrawn because of a sacred site process that dragged on for the better part of two years. Everywhere else in the country, governments are looking to reduce the amount of planning and regulation that goes with it, but here in the Territory we're still being struck with incidents like sacred sites that stop projects from happening, restrict the opportunities for jobs. Why does the Commonwealth make it so hard for the Territory to actually get things done here?

GILES: I won't comment on the planning issue, one, because I don't have direct knowledge of it and if there are any legal issues, I don't want to cut across them. One thing, if we go to planning approvals, it's been very clear from the roundtable that the Treasurer and the Prime Minister hosted back in August, and if you listen to anything the Housing Minister ever says, my friend Clare O'Neil, we're interested in making it easier to build.

Now obviously there are appropriate regulations whether they deal with cultural heritage, whether they deal with other aspects that we need to deal with. You will have noticed that almost the last Act of the Federal Parliament was to pass groundbreaking reforms which will make it quicker to get to yes, or quicker to get to no as appropriate when it comes to environmental approvals. This is the process that Sussan Ley kicked off when she was the Environment Minister I think more than five years ago and we've finally made that progress.

JOURNALIST: Those groundbreaking reforms won't affect things like sacred site applications here in the Northern Territory. The Northern Territory is an outlier and unique in that space. Is there anything that the Commonwealth can do that will make it easier for projects to go ahead without two-year delays waiting for sacred site approvals [indistinct]?

GILES: Well again, the environmental reforms are obviously very significant. I don't think I'm placed to give a direct commentary on the heritage laws that apply in the Northern Territory. What I would say is that I've found as a Commonwealth Minister over the last three and a bit years, every discussion I've had with the Territory has involved ministers being very direct in standing up for Territory interests, particularly when it comes to the National Skills Agreement which I’m responsible for.

JOURNALIST: How much would the private sector participate in getting Aboriginal people involved in the workforce. SunCable, apparently their Aboriginal participation plan is [indistinct] one per cent target for Aboriginal employment. Is that enough?

GILES: I've got a broad view, whether it's about Aboriginal employment, whether it's about the employment of women in non-traditional trades, that we've got to make sure that everyone can see themselves doing any job in Australia. And that's a big part of today's announcement, breaking down barriers, some that we can see, some that perhaps we can't see yet, by bringing those voices to the forefront. There's obviously got to be a critical role here for the people who employ women to think about where we have got skill shortages, to make sure that they're looking at everyone.

I'd like to see more business investment and training across the board. I've met some fantastic businesses while I've been here and indeed around the country who are thinking deeply about how do they build our own workforce into the future. How they look beyond perhaps some of the traditional stereotypes of who fits a particular role. That's obviously got to be a big part of an economy like the Northern Territory where nearly one in three people are Aboriginal.

JOURNALIST: Minister, speaking of employment, how will this funding ensure that it goes towards ensuring that Indigenous people walk out of those courses or getting those skills to be used within the employment sector?

GILES: That's what this announcement's all about and the conversations we're about to go into in there are about us listening, us building a community of practice of people who are First Nations Australians, who are in the process of being trained, so they can provide appropriate advice to Minister Hersey and to myself to make sure that their voices are at the forefront, their experiences and their understandings are brought to bear. I'd certainly recognise that over time we haven't done enough. We need to recognise what has been working. We've got to listen to the voices who are close to the ground and that's what the announcement really is about.

JOURNALIST: [Inaudible question]

GILES: So this is not about a number of traineeships. This is about building a system that will work. This is about making sure that some of the barriers that have existed in the past are broken down –

JOURNALIST: You haven't set any targets, though, have you? So how do we know they'll work?

GILES: Not through this. We've got lots of targets across the National Skills Agreement. This is an investment that's about building capacity. Building capacity in terms of workforce. It's about building capacity in terms of making sure that the understandings that are known and held by First Nations people are brought to bear when it comes to skilling more Aboriginal people in this economy.

JOURNALIST: [Inaudible] targets around building capacity, how do you know when you've reached that optimal level?

GILES: Well, again, I'll try and answer the question. Not every announcement that we make is about setting out a number and reaching it. This is about building capacity. We know that across the workforce, not just when it comes to Aboriginal people, we do not have the training capacity we have to meet the skills that we need right across the economy. We've got to invest in that. For too long, governments have not invested in skilling Australians. This is one step towards that. It's about realising the broader goals that we've agreed to, every government in Australia, around the National Skills Agreement, so that we don't end up where we were three years ago, facing a huge skills crisis that affects every Australian and impacts people's cost of living.

JOURNALIST: Yeah, Minister, I have two questions for both of you. Minister Jo Hersey, why are you pushing the Feds to move its promised training centre to Katherine High School, not CDU? And Minister Giles, where will the training centre be built?

HERSEY: I'll answer that question first. So we did have Minister Giles down in Katherine a couple of days ago, as I said earlier. It was fantastic to be able to show him the alternate site of which, as the local member of Katherine, as someone who's lived there for 35 years, we need to make sure that the funding that is going into this centre, which is federally and Northern Territory Government funded, is fit for purpose. We know that we are going to have a corrections facility built out at CDU. The training centre is not part of that corrections facility. And so we know that, again, we're here to announce strengthening the Aboriginal sector. We need to get more people in the sector and into trades and having a Trade Training Centre in town between two schools where you've got access to shops across the road, you’ve got access to technology and internet, and all the other things that people need when they are on break or whatever, that we need to make sure that it is a fit for purpose centre. So these negotiations are ongoing with CDU and with the Federal Government and we continue to build on that and I'll continue to press CDU on these issues and make sure that we get what is best for Katherine.

JOURNALIST: On a national issue. Do you think it’s appropriate for a minister and two others to spend $94,000 in taxpayer funds on flights to New York?

GILES: I think it's fair to say that Minister Wells has been asked this question repeatedly and has answered it very directly. What I'd say is that Minister Wells is leading work that's not just an Australian first, it's of global significance. The social media ban will have a huge impact on the lives of young Australians and give them the opportunity to [indistinct]. That's what I'm focused on. It's about delivering to Australians. That's what the [indistinct].

JOURNALIST: Do you think it's fair that taxpayers would expect better value from money from their elected representatives than to spend such an extraordinary amount of money?

GILES: Again, Minister Wells has answered this. I think what Australians expect from officials is that we work hard in the national interest and there's absolutely no doubt that Minister Wells does that every day. Thanks very much, guys.