New England North West skills and training forum
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00:00What a fabulous morning we have had today at the Work and Shortage Skills and Training
00:12Forum held here in Armidale.
00:13What a wrap-up we've had.
00:15We are ready to rock and roll for the New England Northwest.
00:18We've brought together experts from industry, education, and lots of training organisations,
00:25et cetera.
00:26It's just been absolutely fabulous.
00:28The wealth of knowledge that's been in the room today has absolutely landed us in a fantastic
00:34spot to say we're ready to build a blueprint to close the gap on and find those solutions
00:40for those workers' shortages skills and training.
00:43And that will start with looking at what a regional learning system can look like for
00:49our region.
00:50How we can embrace what we already have, the opportunities that we have, and bring together
00:56that brainstress to say, how can we now face those challenges, take that action, and make
01:03those results come to our region.
01:06That is what we've started today, and it's an incredible opportunity to have our regional
01:11leaders and our brainstress coming together to start this and be working with us hand
01:16in hand, arm in arm, and we will get the results that we need for the New England Northwest.
01:23It's a pretty tight time, I think, that we know that the New South Wales Government has
01:26to reduce expenditure, and they're working very hard, I think, to contain expenditure
01:31all around.
01:32So it's probably not reasonable to expect grand largesse.
01:36But I have noticed that the discussion of the regions has been important, and they've
01:40maintained several funds.
01:42I think I'm particularly buoyed by the fact that we see at least some money still going
01:47into the development of schools.
01:50For me, the university's mission is about education for people of regional and rural
01:53Australia, and we've got to start with making sure that the school environment is creating
01:59the aspiration in children for university.
02:03What do you think about the skills shortage and UNE's role in addressing that in regional
02:09areas?
02:12It's an interesting question.
02:13I mean, it's an interesting question for everybody as to why, all of a sudden, Australia has
02:17not enough people for our employment opportunities post-COVID.
02:21The university is trying to be a much more flexible place for learners of all different
02:25types, of all different stages in their personal careers and life journeys.
02:32It's a difficult thing for us to move very quickly towards, but we are trying to find
02:36avenues via which we can provide opportunities for people to do that.
02:41It's also really important the university is able to use big ears and listen very carefully
02:45to which of the skills that the learners that are out there will respond to.
02:52We have had examples where we've done quite a lot of background work on trying to understand
02:56what the demand for skills looks like and create short course opportunities, for example,
03:01and then the students don't show up.
03:03We really have a matching issue here as well to make sure we understand where the appetite
03:07is for those who are in a tight employment economy and for those who are demanding the
03:13skills and see if we can find some sweet spots to start to develop out from, but it's
03:17a wicked problem this one.
03:19So, Jennifer, you were saying that some of the medical professionals are moving from
03:26Moree and Inveril to Armidale.
03:30Why is that?
03:33We need to think about what our colleagues in our medical workforce do, and they do different
03:39things.
03:40They have a different scope of practice when they're in a remote location, when they're
03:44in a rural location like Moree, Inveril, Narrabri, Gunnedah, and when they're in our bigger regional
03:49towns like Armidale and Tamworth.
03:53So what we know is that when you're in and you're working in a small town as a health
03:57professional, there's often quite a significant amount of on-call, and there's often challenges
04:03obviously because you're expected and understood by your community to have quite a broad scope
04:09of practice.
04:10Now, we are very grateful for the effort and time that our rural GPs spend in providing
04:17these sorts of services, and we have many GPs who are absolute ornaments to their community.
04:24But I guess what I want to say is that we shouldn't expect them to stay in our small
04:28rural towns forever because that puts a pressure on them and a responsibility on them that
04:34I don't think is totally fair.
04:36So over time and with changing family needs and work-life balance, it is very reasonable
04:43that those practitioners will leave their smaller rural communities and look to go to
04:48larger places.
04:50The good news is that they often choose our regional centres like Dubbo, like Tamworth,
04:56like Armidale, and they do that because of that rural lifestyle quality that we have
05:01in spades.
05:03And obviously access to secondary schooling where you don't have to send your children
05:07away to boarding school if your school only goes to year 10, those sorts of considerations
05:13definitely come into play for many of our medical health professionals.
05:17So what can communities such as Inveril and Moree do to retain their health professionals
05:25there?
05:26So already those towns do go out of their way to support their communities and their
05:32health professionals.
05:34What we need to do is, though, is to make sure that we're reasonable in what we expect.
05:40And we know that retention times are lower the more remote you go.
05:46So it is not unreasonable to think that if you were in a town of less than 1,000 people
05:51that your retention time in that town as a primary health care nurse or as a rural GP
05:59might be somewhat shorter than it was in a larger town.
06:03And that might be somewhat shorter to a regional centre like Armidale or Tamworth.
06:10And is it lifestyle that is encouraging medical professionals away from the smaller towns
06:17in New England to larger centres such as Tamworth and Armidale?
06:22It's multifaceted.
06:23It's partly that scope of practice that I talked to, which means that people have to
06:29be proficient in a breadth of skills.
06:32And they are magnificent and supportive practitioners, nurses, health professionals, and allied health
06:37professionals who are happy to work over that wide scope.
06:41It's career advancement and career trajectory that many of our younger graduates are looking
06:45to over time.
06:47And it's definitely about spousal employment and rural lifestyle and wanting and having
06:53those needs of their families change over time.