Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

No, I will not take the question. I want to make some points. These colleges were set up for political reasons to try to attack the technical teachers union, who were not happy to sign AWAs. The private colleges have problems being set up to teach trades. My concern is that they are going to break the traditional depth of skills that we built in our tradespeople in this country down to where we have some mickey mouse scheme where people get very little training and are turned out as tradesmen. I think that will be a very sad day for Australia and will not do the country any good in the long term.

I think employers do want skilled people. The problem that they have, of course, is that they do not want to pay for training. We all remember the old training levy days when the Hawke-Keating government tried to improve training in this country by getting employers to pay. We do not really want to go back to levy days, but we do not want to go back to where we are importing all our trades men and women either. We really do have to train people in this country and we have to find the right ways to do that. We have to train them properly, because the country needs those basic skills for the long-term future and not five- or six-week courses or three-month courses after which people are turned out that we call tradesmen—but who are not tradesmen at all.

Arrangements could have been made with the states. Negotiations and the failure of the federal minister to negotiate with the states to get a deal through the TAFE system could have achieved the same result—or a better result than we presently have. Of course, Labor has said that it will abolish TAFE fees, state fees, so that we really encourage people into the TAFE area. We will also assist unemployed people into training in areas of need, and TAFE will continue—

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