Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Absolutely, Mr Deputy Speaker. The way around it would have been to rein in spending, the extravagant spending that this government has continued to embark upon, and instead invest some of the budget surplus in skills creation, so easing the capacity constraints on the Australian economy. It is those capacity constraints that have led to interest rate pressures. This legislation before us tonight is a belated, feeble attempt to do as little as possible about the acute skills shortages in this country. Only four of these technical colleges now look like they are up and running, there are huge problems in the implementation of this measure and the first graduates of those technical colleges will not be coming out for several years.

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