Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

The number of students altogether in vocational and technical education around this country today has risen to 1.6 million people, and that is an increase of 26 per cent over the last few years. At the end of the day, never before in the history of this nation has there been a government with this level of commitment to this important area of encouraging businesses to take on young people in particular, to give them the training opportunities to take on the nation building trades. This is a big contrast to the days when the member for Brand was the minister in charge of this particular area. In fact, I suppose the Minister for Defence will probably like the irony of this. When the member for Brand went from Defence to education and training, he said that there were no challenges left. He felt as though there was nothing to do, and in his time in that particular job there were 30,000 people trashed when it came to apprenticeships in this country, and Australia’s economy is still paying the price for the lack of interest that the member for Brand had when he had an opportunity to grow apprenticeships. Instead he retarded it, and it affected Australia’s economy. The recession we had to have is still being felt right around Australia today because of the member for Brand’s stewardship at that time.

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