University of Canberra AI Roundtable
Acknowledgements omitted
A few weeks ago I met Oscar at a TAFE campus in Melbourne.
Oscar is a mature-aged plumbing apprentice in his second year of training.
When I asked him why he decided to pick up the tools, he said ‘because AI can’t dig a hole.’
Oscar’s story is an illustration of how AI is changing how Australians are thinking about the world of work.
It’s one way in which – informally – perceptions of AI are changing pathways in vocational education.
Too often, we talk about AI as if it’s something that’s coming in the future.
But the truth is, generative AI is already here.
Chat GPT alone is answering 2.5 billion questions every day.
Right now, AI is reshaping how we learn, how we work and how we live.
And with that, it’s also transforming how we think: influencing how we value our skills and how we imagine our future.
So, while the Productivity Commission – rightly – highlights the possibilities of effective AI adoption, to realise these benefits we need to enable Australians to navigate this, on their terms.
For the Albanese Government, this doesn’t mean simply watching people build data centres.
And while getting our policy settings fit for purpose is a whole of government question that my colleague Minister Tim Ayres leading, there’s a critical role for the skills and training portfolio here.
A few weeks ago, at the National Press Club, I set out my approach to my responsibilities as Australia’s Minister for Skills and Training - and my determination to realise the extraordinary talents of Australians.
Through valuing vocational education and training, promoting lifelong learning and building strong and resilient partnerships with purpose.
Today – thanks to Bill, soon to be listening to Cynthia about MIT PATH, and engaging with you all – I want to, briefly, suggest how such an approach might facilitate us meeting the challenges presented by the seemingly inexorable expansion of gen AI, and seizing its opportunities.
For all of us.
When Oscar told me that AI can’t dig a hole, he smiled.
He’s confident in the future of his hands-on trade, knowing his skills are future-proof.
But Oscar is the exception rather than the rule.
More often than not, Australians are apprehensive about the impact of AI.
They’re nervous about how AI could affect their futures and they’re grappling with real questions about job security, relevance, and whether their skills which they’ve spent years building still matter.
This is exactly what JSA’s Generative AI Capacity Study tells us, that 60 per cent of people believe AI will replace jobs.
But what the study also shows is that generative AI will largely augment, rather than automate roles.
In most cases, workers will be collaborating with, rather than competing against, AI.
That means our challenge is not just technological, it’s educational.
We must enable people to upskill so they can effectively adapt to working with AI and take advantage of its productivity enhancing benefits.
Which means in skills and training, we must do two things.
One, help people understand how AI is evolving and what it means for their roles.
And two, support all Australians, at all career points, to upskill and build digital literacy.
Australia is well placed to rise to the challenge before us, and to seize the opportunities, thanks in large part to the reform agenda of the Albanese Government.
Today, we have in place the National Skills Agreement, a $30 billion, five-year partnership with purpose, uniting the Commonwealth and all state and territory governments.
Free TAFE is now legislated, an enduring pathway for Australians to access skills that they want and our economy needs.
And we can draw on the analytical capacity of Jobs and Skills Australia, and the tripartite Jobs and Skills Councils which were established in our first year of Government.
These bodies are supporting the national response to AI’s impact on work.
They’re doing this by providing evidence-based insights into how AI is affecting different industries and occupations, identifying emerging skill needs driven by AI and helping to ensure that training products reflect those developments.
Future Skills Organisation is the Jobs and Skills Council leading the response to skills gaps related to emerging AI capabilities.
This year, FSO launched the AI Skills Accelerator – in partnership with Microsoft – a scalable partnership between industry and the VET sector that helps educators and learners access best practice in AI skills, fast.
FSO also created the Digital Knowledge Exchange, a national platform for sharing digital skills initiatives across states and territories, with a strong focus on inclusion, capability building, and collaboration.
Critically – FSO is also developing generalist and specialist AI units of competency across Australian Qualifications Framework levels, and researching barriers to AI adoption for small and medium enterprises and diverse worker cohorts — so we can ensure equitable access to the opportunities AI brings.
This is, I believe, an exemplar of how we bridge the AI skills divide.
The work referred to above can inform the work of other JSCs, and wider engagement with government and industry – and tertiary education providers – to ensure we catch up with skills in demand today, and can keep this process building to match the needs of an AI-driven economy.
Of course, there is so much more to be done.
But we have a framework to work with.
And new ideas to draw upon.
In Australia, everything the Commonwealth does in the skills space, it does in partnership.
At its essence, the National Skills Agreement sets out shared objectives and enables initiatives that are designed to meet them.
To connect our national interests in areas like housing construction and the care economy, with measures to address skills shortages holding back progress.
Such an approach is required to ensure that Australians can access the skills they need to participate in a world of work that’s changing in large part due to AI adoption – and to do so in ways that enable their perspectives to be brought to bear.
In the cause of both efficiency and equity.
Government’s role here is fundamental, but far from exclusive.
It is imperative that we articulate our national goals, and programs to help us reach them.
To say to individual Australians that we take seriously our responsibility to support them in facing the future with confidence.
And to recognise that doing so requires partnerships that bring together all stakeholders in shared purpose.
As we build these bridges between industry and education, we’re also strengthening the connections across our tertiary system — ensuring VET and higher education work in harmony to deliver the skills Australians need in an AI-enabled economy.
Because research has found that in that economy, more than nine in 10 new jobs will require a tertiary qualification with an almost fifty-fifty split between VET and university.
A genuinely joined up post-compulsory education system is a vital expression of a parity of esteem between these education pathways.
Recognising this, and following the Universities Accord recommendations, I’ve been working with Minister Clare on the establishment of the Australian Tertiary Education Commission.
JSA tells us that a more connected tertiary education system has the potential to lift workforce productivity and skill levels and help build the workforce we will need in the future.
The report also finds that better connecting VET and higher education will help improve access to tertiary education and improve the status, sustainability, and impact of TAFE and the wider VET system.
The ATEC will help with this.
By creating an integrated system – allowing people to move between uni and TAFE, and the other way around – more seamlessly.
Of course, we can see progress happening already, including of course under Bill here at UC and Margot at CIT, as well as through targeted partnerships focused on tech micro credentials such as that located at TAFE NSW’s Meadowbank campus.
But tertiary harmonisation is a critical foundation to support and embed AI skills across the training and education ecosystem.
And joining these pathways up will allow people to more easily join, rejoin, move through and return throughout their lives.
Because as I said earlier, the key insight from JSA’s capacity study is that generative AI is augmenting jobs, not for the most part replacing them.
Augmenting – this is an ongoing process, not a fixed outcome.
So too must be our approach to skills policy, hence the significance of a lifelong learning approach.
Lifelong learning means encouraging a flexible and adaptable approach to reskilling and upskilling, whether in workplace settings, in traditional classrooms or through adult and further education through programs like SEE – Skills for Education and Employment.
Empowering workers and learners is also how we can increase trust in the technology: something that’s fundamental to its effective deployment.
Last Friday in Wollongong I heard from participants about their
AI-related concerns - and I saw how they were working, thanks to a program helping to equip people with the skills to navigate a new world that presents particular challenges to those who aren’t digital natives.
Put another way, lifelong learning means rejecting a set-and-forget approach to skills and training.
If the labour market is calling for workers to be flexible and adaptable, our skills system must be likewise – and accessible, too.
Today’s symposium brings together higher education, TAFE, industry and workers to consider how we can best equip Australians to develop the skills they need to navigate a rapidly changing world of work – and how to better align this to the evolving needs of business.
With that in mind, I’m so excited to be hearing from Professor Cynthia Breazeal.
The MIT PATH seems to exemplify this type of approach, a model that seeks to ensure that everyone is supported to gain the skills necessary to thrive in an AI-transformed economy.
I’m excited to listen to Cynthia – and by the prospect of a new partnership that this conversation promises.
When I spoke at the National Press Club, I centred my remarks on our greatest national asset – the extraordinary, diverse, innovative Australian community.
If we are to realise the opportunities of AI, it will be through harnessing the understandings, experiences and capacities of Australians – recognising that this can’t be left to itself.
Especially given the nature of the technology, and the interests of its owners.
Right now, skills shortages in tech, and utilising AI effectively more broadly, are holding us back.
Addressing this, looking to the future, is vital to ensuring the Australians aren’t left behind by a rapidly changing labour market.
This is my focus as Minister for Skills and Training.
Thank you.