Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Macquarie, the Chief Government Whip, rightly makes the point that the unions, with their interference in and control of the agenda in New South Wales, have said: ‘No, we want to actually stop people from entering the trades. The last thing we want are more people in the trades. We want to deny people access to the trades while they are at school.’ Now, what sort of damage is that doing to the economy? The New South Wales unemployment rate of 5.5 per cent shows that New South Wales is writing its own ticket to the dump. That is what is going on in the New South Wales government today.

In contrast, this government has created 1.9 million new jobs over the last 10 years and created 205,000 new jobs over the last six months. In fact, if you look at every six-month period through all seasons and so forth over the last 20 years, the average is about 70,000 jobs. But something happened six months ago. It is called Work Choices, and it introduced a sense of trust, a sense of choice, into the workplace. Employers and employees are sitting down together like never before, recognising each other’s value, recognising the rights as well as the responsibilities of people at work and creating opportunities as a result. In every state bar New South Wales—Western Australia are being slow, but I am generous enough to say they are getting there—opportunities are expressly being given to kids while they are at school.

As the member for Page, Mr Deputy Speaker, you would have to be distressed that the North Coast of New South Wales continues to have high levels of unemployment for youth: as high as 30 per cent by some estimates—as put into the Hansard by the member for Richmond. The member for Page would be concerned about that. The member for Page knows that he would like to see an Australian technical college operating in the North Coast of New South Wales. If it were not for the New South Wales state government demanding that no school based apprenticeship could take place, demanding that every teacher—good, bad or otherwise—had to be paid the same and no-one could be offered private agreements, and demanding that all incentives were taken out of the question of training and apprenticeships in that part of the North Coast of New South Wales, maybe the member for Page might have his Australian technical college.

The New South Wales government is holding back Australia. But there is not one word from those opposite about how they are going to exert their influence, through their little left-wing socialist collectives, to get the change that is desperately needed in this country—to get the biggest economy and the biggest state doing the job that should be done, and that is to offer kids in that state opportunities to learn a trade. In any discussion about trades, any comparison between the two major parties puts us in the box seat every time. (Time expired)

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