Carol
BEAUMONT
Associate Spokesperson for Education
23 November 2011 MEDIA STATEMENT
Skills: Time for talking is over, let’s act
The call by a large recruitment company to set up a taskforce to look at how best to attract and keep skilled workers in
New Zealand may have some merit, but Labour would simply get on with the job of implementing its skills strategy, says
Labour’s Associate Education spokesperson Carol Beaumont.
“In terms of skills training, New Zealand has gone backward under National,” Carol Beaumont said. “The urgent need is to
train more of our people for skilled jobs, not for another talkfest, no matter how well-intentioned it might be.
“We saw the mother of all talkfests when National came to office. The so-called Jobs Summit created a handful of jobs at
most, while tens of thousands of Kiwis have since headed for the scrapheap, or packed their bags and headed to
Australia.
“In 2008 the Labour government had a skills strategy in place --- a tripartite agreement between government, business
and unions,” Carol Beaumont said. “What happened when National won the last election? It immediately binned the
strategy, and replaced it with nothing that has been effective in stopping the brain and body drain.
“Labour still strongly believes in a strategic and collaborative approach. It worked under the last Labour government
and it will work again now,” Carol Beaumont said.
“National’s idea of a strategic and collaborative approach is to seek skilled workers in the United Kingdom to rebuild
Christchurch. It’s nonsense, but worse than that, it’s a tragedy for Kiwis who want to be trained to contribute to this
wonderful country of ours.
“Labour has a strong plan to get New Zealanders into skilled work that will pay them the sort of wages that will
encourage them to stay in New Zealand. Labour is committed to providing every Kiwi throughout their life cycle with the
opportunity to up-skill and realise their full potential, but to do this we need a world class skills training system.
“All the evidence shows that lifting skills and utilising those skills well leads to lifts in productivity, which will
help ensure business success and deliver a high wage economy.
“Deliberate actions need to be taken bring this about,” Carol Beaumont said. “As well as having a comprehensive Youth
Skills and Employment Package, Labour will create a New Zealand Employment and Skills Strategy; set an ambitious target
to have three out of four adult New Zealanders holding qualifications at Level 3 or above by 2020; review the entire
range of vocational training to ensure it is world-leading; and restore the $13 million cut from ACE. The time for
simply talking has passed.”
ENDS