Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

No. He’s not even on the committee yet. (Quorum formed) I am very pleased to address the issue of the trade skills visa. As the member for Goldstein said, the member for Watson obviously is just playing politics with us. He knows in his heart of hearts that this is a very good policy solution for producing more skilled people in the regions of Australia. He is bringing it up as an issue because he knows that he cannot get any traction on any other issue. He is supposed to be the spokesman for the opposition, but at the end of the day he has not really been able to get his head up. He languishes over in that part of the House; as a result, he has to struggle to get himself taken as relevant.

At the end of the day, we have people like Sharan Burrow, the ACTU president, who says that this is a very good program for skilling regional Australia because it brings a resource to the regions of Australia which is sorely needed. We have the former ACTU president sitting here, the member for Throsby; she disagrees with the current ACTU president, Sharan Burrow.

We know that there is a lot of protection in this. The states have been consulted on this as well. The states are very keen on seeing this introduced into the regions of Australia. Strangely enough, the member for Watson thinks that Blacktown is a region of Australia. Sorry old son, it is not a region of Australia. Have you ever been into the regions of Australia? If you did you would know that there are so few apprentices available in the regions of Australia that this is why they are looking to overseas students to come here, skill themselves, and then receive a range of visa options which they can use to stay in Australia and add to Australian society as well-skilled people in the Australian work force. We are very pleased to have them, unlike the member— (Time expired)

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