Skills training a technical issue

By Shaun Inguanzo
AN Australian Technical College will be built in Dandenong at the cost of $25 million if the Howard Government is re-elected.
The announcement, made before a large crowd of Greater Dandenong’s key business figures, is a move by the Liberals to tackle a skills shortage affecting manufacturing in the region.
But the Labor Party has slammed the Liberals’ love affair with technical colleges as a ‘fantasy’, and accused them of neglecting trades skilling until the election campaign. Liberal candidate for Isaacs Ross Fox this week announced the Australian Technical College plan for Dandenong at HM Gem Engines in Dandenong South, just a week-and-a-half out of the Federal Election on 24 November.
Mr Fox said the technical college was the result of a pitch he made to Federal Vocational and Further Education Minister Andrew Robb during the Minister’s visit the electorate last week.
“This new tech college will be particularly important to help boost local skills for our important local manufacturing industries,” Mr Fox said. Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister Tony Smith was also on hand to help launch the plan, which Mr Fox said had come from many years of advocacy from local business networks such as the South East Melbourne Manufacturers’ Alliance, and South East Networks. But his Labor opponent Mark Dreyfus said the Liberals’ focus on building Australian Technical Colleges was too little too late, and just hot air for the election campaign.
“At the 2004 election, Mr Howard, without any consultation with the states, announced 24 Australian Technical Colleges, which would have 7200 students,” Mr Dreyfus said. “Three years and half a billion dollars later, there are only 1800 students.
“These so-called colleges have not produced one graduate, and most of their training has been outsourced to existing TAFE colleges.
“The fact is that technical training can only be developed in cooperation with the states, and with the goodwill of technical teachers.
“The Howard Government has made no effort to develop a cooperative plan, but instead has tried to seize control of technical training as an election stunt.”
Mr Dreyfus said federal Labor had a plan for trades training facilities for every Australian secondary school, including the 17 government and non-government schools in the Isaacs electorate.
There is no indication as yet of where the Australian Technical College would be built in Dandenong.