Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Perhaps you might go out and have a talk to some of these authorities out there. The involvement of full-fee-paying apprentices from overseas will help maintain numbers in apprenticeship courses and will help maintain a critical mass. Full-fee-paying students will provide an important source of funding and boost the viability of courses. This helps young Australians. It keeps training opportunities open and available in their region. Labor has no feel for or empathy with regional Australia. It is coming through again and again.

The third and important reason why this training visa contributes to young Australians is that none of this is at the expense of local students getting their opportunities. The training visa will only be available where businesses have not been able to attract Australians to apprenticeship positions. This is strictly controlled, as the opposition have been advised on many occasions, by regional certification bodies. These regional certification bodies have to be nominated and endorsed by the state and territory Labor governments. Every one of them has to nominate and endorse these certifying bodies. These agencies are required and are very well placed to judge that no Australian apprentice can be found to fill the vacancy before allowing entry of any overseas apprentice. The overriding criterion is that they have to be satisfied that the apprenticeship cannot be filled locally. They are well placed to use all sorts of techniques to do this, including, if they choose, to confer with local unions if required. Bear in mind that these are all authorities approved by Labor governments.

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