Greater South East Melbourne Jobs and Skills Roadmap Launch

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Good evening and thanks for the invitation to speak tonight.

I want to acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land we’re meeting on, the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples.

And pay my respects to their Elders past and present.

It’s good to be with you to launch the Greater South East Melbourne Jobs and Skills Roadmap.

Planning for the skills needs of a rapidly changing future economy is something we’ve been very focused on at a federal level, so I welcome the key local and community insight offered in your Roadmap.

When we came to office in 2022, we inherited the deepest skills shortage in more than 50 years.

In response, we held our Jobs and Skills Summit just months after coming into office.

We brought together leaders from industry, education and training, State and Territory Governments and civil society to identify and address the gaps in our workforce.

And the insights, recommendations and outcomes from that summit were invaluable in shaping our policies and initiatives.

I’m sure the same can be said of your Jobs and Skills Summit held last month.

Greater South East Melbourne is a key economic region, not only for Victoria, but for Australia – home to more than 500,000 jobs and over 83,000 businesses.

It’s an area of Melbourne that is rapidly changing and expanding – and one that is key to manufacturing – to a Future Made in Australia. 

The themes that came out of our national summit, and those that came out of yours, are not too different.

We both understand the need for greater collaboration – to bring together industry, government and the education and training sector.

We both get the need for strategic planning to address current workforce requirements and prepare for future ones. 

We understand the importance of improving equity, inclusive growth and reducing disadvantage in our VET sector.

And at the federal level we’re creating and investing in programs to realise those shared goals.

We signed a landmark $30 billion five-year National Skills Agreement with all States and Territories – the first of its kind in more than a decade.

We created Jobs and Skills Australia, an independent agency, to provide high quality data, analysis and advice to inform our workforce planning and policies.

It was clear from our discussions that a coordinated approach is essential to address skills shortages and build a workforce equipped for the future.

We created 10 Jobs and Skills Councils.

Those JSCs bring together employers, unions and governments in a tripartite arrangement to find solutions to skills and workforce challenges.

The Manufacturing Industry Skills Alliance is one example.

This JSC is working with manufacturing regions across Australia, including with the South East Melbourne region, Australia’s largest manufacturing region.

And I know my good friend, mentor and Labor legend Simon Crean played a significant role in your organisation.

ABS data for the South Eastern Melbourne and Peninsula Employment Region shows that employment in manufacturing rose by 23% to stand at 71,300 jobs for the year to February 2024.

And with our government’s plan for A Future Made in Australia – it’s a very exciting time for manufacturing.

Another shared goal is promoting equality, inclusive growth and reducing disadvantage.

Through Fee-Free TAFE, we have partnered with States and Territories to remove cost barriers to skill acquisition in areas of demand. 

More than 355,000 Australians started training in 2023, with another 320,000 Fee-Free TAFE places being rolled out over the next 3 years.

We are giving apprentices more financial and non-financial support to improve completions, and ensuring more women and First Nations people are supported into apprenticeships.

And we are making sure that people learning at TAFEs and other VET providers are doing so on up-to-date and industry standard equipment through our TAFE Tech Fund.

Just last month I was at Chisholm Institute in Dandenong meeting Fee-Free TAFE students to announce a $2 million investment for new machining equipment.

All of these investments aim to elevate the status of vocational education and training to its rightful place – as good a pathway to the labour market as the university pathway.

The launch of this Jobs and Skills Roadmap for Greater South East Melbourne is a positive step in preparing for labour market challenges of the future.

And the Albanese Government will continue working closely with local leaders like you, in the shared mission to deliver skills for workers, businesses and our economy.