Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Whilst I appreciate the interjections, I will continue. In taking their eyes off the ball, the employers laid down the foundations for the problems that occur today. As I said to the Australian Industry Group, governments also took their eyes off the ball in that the major government instrumentalities which recruit and employ apprentices stopped doing so. The Australian Industry Group and I reached agreement that, overall, industry and government allowed the skills shortage we now face to develop. The member for Ballarat has quite rightly said in discussing this MPI that the response of government has been completely inadequate. The Minister for Vocational and Technical Education has presided over one of the most incompetent implementations of a program by a government—the Australian technical colleges—that it is possible to find. In a cobbled together brain-snap during the 2004 election campaign—

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