John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Apart from the fact that I happen to think that just being over 25 or over 30 is still pretty young, and in fact I think a much higher age than that is still pretty young, I would counsel—not a word I normally use; it is a bit too politically correct for me—the Deputy Leader of the Opposition about introducing ageism into this debate. I think that is a very unwise thing to do. You ask about 16-year-olds, 17-year-olds and 18-year-olds. I will give you 403,600 responses to what this government has done for that age cohort, because that is the number of apprentices now in training, which is a 161 per cent increase since March 1996. I might also remind the Deputy Leader of the Opposition that the principal beneficiaries of the 25 Australian technical colleges—in fact really the only beneficiaries of those—are young Australians in years 11 and 12 and, the last time I checked, most Australians in years 11 and 12 were well under the age of 25.

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