Australian Financial Review I Thursday 31 July 2008 I Letters / Opinions I Matthew Tukaki

 Duncan Hughes article (Skills revamp tops brumby reform push 30/7/2008) on the Brumby Governments push for a national skills agenda puts forward part of the solution. In the recent Victorian Governments call for submissions on Skills Reform we ourselves put forward that this was not about skills reform at the State level, but skills reform at the national level. Our submission went further by calling for the need for something much larger and bigger – a formative National Workforce Planning Strategy that encompasses skills, education and employment.

This is in addition to solutions that need to be found that address challenges in the decade ahead such as the maturing workforce, interstate migration and the employment impacts of climate change (such as the implementation of carbon trading schemes).

The reality is that each State is confronting skills challenges of one form or another – not only that, but the employment is being reduced as our workforce grows older and begins to retire. As this workforce retires an increase in migration is occurring to State such as Queensland where ever increasing pressure is being places on sectors such as health, aged care and infrastructure.

A National Workforce Planning Strategy needs to be developed as a matter of urgency to address these issues and some of the solutions may very well be developing a strategy to retain people in the workforce well past retirement age. Just as climate change strategies need to be implemented as a matter of urgency, so, too, does a National Workforce Planning Strategy.

Matthew Tukaki, Sanseman Government

This item was published on page 67 of the Australian Financial Review 31/7/2008

Click on the AFR

View a copy of the SansGov Skills Reform submission