Skills Insight Stakeholder Forum Melbourne

Acknowledgements omitted

Thank you for inviting me today to launch your Workforce Plan.

In the last couple of months I’ve launched a few of these Plans by the Jobs and Skills Councils.

I’ll come to your Workforce Plan in a moment, but first I wanted to take the opportunity of being here today to talk about JSCs more broadly – where we are and where we can go.

The ten JSCs were established under my predecessor Brendan O’Connor to fulfil a number of aims:

• to support training;
• to take a strategic look at workforce planning;
• to provide industry with a stronger voice to ensure there’s better outcomes for learners and employers; and
• to help facilitate the connections of those of you ‘on the ground’ with government, and with each other.

The tripartite approach of JSCs encompassing employers, unions and governments is an important one.

This isn’t only recognised by me – the Treasurer also has highlighted this in the context of the Economic Reform Roundtable.

And as I reflected at the National Press Club last month, I think there’s a great opportunity for Skills Insight and our other JSCs to play a bigger role in the coming years, including in the careers space.

But I also want to highlight how useful the Workforce Plans are, like the one I’m launching here today.

They are the heart of the work of a JSC, helping to set priorities and build an evidence base for the work you’ll do, and identifying and developing solutions to workforce challenges.

The sectors that Skills Insight covers are some of the most important to what makes Australia unique, supporting our country – and beyond our country too – in people’s lives every day.

Agribusiness, fibre, furnishing, food, animal care, environmental management.

Through the VET system, these industries have a role to play in fulfilling our Government’s guiding light: that no Australian is held back and no Australian is left behind – whether that person lives in suburban Melbourne where we are today, remote Northern Territory, the west coast of Tasmania, or in regional Western Australia.

The more than 70 sectors that Skills Insight covers employ more than 570,000 people.

It’s a significant part of our workforce, and it’s an incredible diversity of work.

Today’s Workforce Plan focuses on four strategic priorities. They are:

• support industry leadership to understand, facilitate and promote VET solutions;
• identify current and future workforce skills needs and develop improved VET products;
• encourage improved quality and supply of training delivery where, when and for whom it is needed; and
• promote data improvements and evidence-based solutions to address skilling and employment barriers.

As well as helping to shape pathways for VET students, JSCs must be responsive to the industries they serve. 

Last year, Skills Insight undertook a feasibility study for an agricultural trade apprenticeship, a training path that has been advocated for by the National Farmers’ Federation.

The report’s findings were discussed by the Agricultural Workforce Forum chaired by the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.

The report determined that an apprenticeship is feasible but will require further exploration, which Skills Insight is undertaking.

This is a real demonstration of where a JSC is working with industry and government to ensure that the VET sector delivers better outcomes for learners and employers.

The work is particularly important in the agricultural sector, where your Workforce Plan highlights an ageing workforce, and on where there are gaps in succession planning.

Any training not only needs be informed by industry but also needs to be accessible.

Your third strategic priority emphasises that training should be delivered in communities, at the right time, and for the right people.

Last month, the Prime Minister announced our $31 million Mobile TAFE program, to help deliver the skills people want and that their communities need – in their own communities.

Mobile training units will enable VET providers to take skills on the road and train the next generation of workers in remote communities.

This new funding is expected to deliver up to 12 projects nationally.

Accessibility also means providing skills and training for people who, for various reasons, have faced greater barriers.

I am proud of the fact that of the over 650,000 Free TAFE enrolments since the program began in 2023, 62 per cent of places have been taken up by women, 6 per cent of places have been taken up by First Nations people and 8 per cent by people with a disability.

To address the skills challenges we’re facing, we need to take down every barrier we can, so that every Australian who wants to be part of the workforce has the opportunity to do so.

Free TAFE is also providing new opportunities to people in regional and remote Australia, with a third of enrolments coming from these areas.

It’s where I’ve had some of the strongest messages of support of Free TAFE, both from students and from the general community who can see how it’s putting people on the path to long-term, secure careers in roles that those communities need.

Skills Insight’s final strategic priority is to promote data improvements and evidence-based solutions to address barriers.

Evidence-based decision making is one of the strengths of JSCs and of Jobs and Skills Australia.

I note that this year’s Skills Insight Workforce Plan will be complemented by a dedicated area on the Skills Insight website featuring an interactive data dashboard.

This will help to inform and assist stakeholders across the skills ecosystem, and better inform people like me to work with you to respond to the needs of these industries.

In closing, let me congratulate you on delivering a Workforce Plan that will be a vital resource for the industries that you cover, and the VET sector more broadly.

It’s a solid foundation to guide your work at the forum today and throughout the coming year.

Thank you.