In the Eyes of the Oligarchs, Competition is Sin.

National Skills Standards Council policy maker & former treasurer to head new $300 million training organisation in a massive conflict of interest.

By General Maddox.

Standard Oil billionaire oligarch, John D. Rockefeller, was a master at identifying and in most cases creating industry choke points. He famously took control of rail transportation hubs in order to block competitors or severely limit them in terms of transporting goods around the U.S.

Another company also took a leaf from from Rockefeller’s book and used the same tactic. Just prior to the launch of the iPod, Apple purchased massive amounts of music hard drives in the marketplace in order to prevent rivals in the electronics and music industry, namely Sony, from coming out with a competing device for a number of years.

This practice resonates within big businesses in all manners of industry. Small operators and providers are often left to fight over the crumbs in undesirable saturated markets. Have you ever asked yourself why is it that 90% of new businesses fail within the first year? It’s because they never really had a chance in the first place as most markets are saturated with competition selling the same products and competing for your hard earned dollar by undercutting each others prices or sweetening the deal in some way just to get by.

In the eyes of the consumer this seen as a good thing. Rather than one company having a monopoly over a product and charging whatever they want they are forced to lower prices etc. in order secure your cash.

In the eyes of some business operators this is a bad thing. This means less income from sales, higher overheads from marketing and overall lower margins.

So what do some of these big operators who are ‘in the know’ do? They position themselves into profitable markets where barriers to competition exist through restrictive and prohibitive regulations or where barriers are developed through their own inventive choke points and it seems that former treasurer, John Dawkins, has done just that.

It would appear that Dawkins is a fan of the Rockefeller School of Business. The current head of the National Skills Standards Council and the Australian Qualifications Framework Council has just become the new chair of Vocation. A new $300 million education company.

In a gigantic conflict of interest we see that the head of these government councils who is responsible for setting the standards for industry providers has become the chair of the new training and education company.

For those not in the know, the vocational education industry has undergone many legislative changes and is continually burying smaller independent Registered Training Organisations (RTO’s) in bureaucratic red tape and it’s all thanks to policy makers like Dawkins.

Vocation has been formed by combining 3 large pre-established RTO’s and who better to chair it than the man responsible for creating the choke points in the industry to hinder the little guys.

The Australian Skills Quality Authority, the newly established regulator for Registered Training Organisations, has been told to increase its fee structure so it can operate on a cost recovery basis.

The Australian National Audit Office states clearly in their own reports on cost recovery that, “Regulatory agencies are expected to have in place arrangements to provide assurance that they are charging the correct amount under cost recovery regimes, while industry and other customers want assurance that the fees and charges they are paying are fair and reflect only those costs incurred in the provision of the activity”.

Regulatory fees in the last two years since their inception have skyrocketed for small providers and they are expected to continue to increase.

The new fee structure effective from 31 July 2013 shows that an initial registration for up to four qualifications will cost providers $8,800 (plus another $9,000 if you want to deliver to international students). It’s another $8,000 to renew your registration ($16,000 if you deliver to international students). If you’re one of the big players, like the newly formed ‘Vocation’, with many qualifications on scope it’s only an extra $145 per qualification. So, in essence, a small provider delivering a single ‘First Aid’ course to the community is up for $9,000 to renew their registration whilst a big provider with up to 30 qualifications on scope is only up for an extra $3,500. Go figure.

On top of all this compliance audits are charged at the rate of $1,000 plus $250 per hour over four hours plus travel costs. The going rate that auditors charge themselves as consultants in the private sector however, is between $125 and $150 (no travel costs, no base rate). Again… Go figure.

If that isn’t enough to discourage an aspiring industry trainer, there’s also a whole host of other regulatory recommendations instigated by John Dawkins that are about to be implemented which will put even more pressure on the small providers forcing them to devote more time to compliance activity.

It’s clear that this industry has been gradually altered in a way so that only handful of large multi-million dollar RTO’s have full reign. Again this just goes to illustrate that in the eyes of the oligarchs, competition is sin.