National and international agendas for development of skilled workers exist in parallel with economic crises with increasing gaps between rich and poor and increasing unemployment, multinational organisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange and ‘destatalisation’ , deregulation, privatisation and marketisation of the education and training (Ball, 2007). It is this contested context, a time of crisis for vocational education and training that has been explored and is reported in this presentation. Funding has been withdrawn from publically funded vocational education and training institutions accompanied by a proliferation of small private Registered Training Organisations, of which there appears to be approximately 5000 including 60 government Technical and Further Education institutes (NSSC, 2013). In this state, a rapid ‘destatalisation’ (Ball, 2007) is reinforcing the private over the public sector VET within a neo-liberal framework References: Ball, S. J., (2007) education plc Understanding private sector participation in public sector education, Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon. National Skills Standards Council (2013) Improving Vocational Education and Training A Case for a New System, COAG Consultation Regulation Impact Paper, Commonwealth of Australia Parliament of Australia, (2012)Youth Unemployment, www.aph.gov.au/About Parliament/ParliamentaryDepartmnets/ParliamentaryLibrary/pubs/MSB/15