Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Transport, Roads and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity this evening to address the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2007-2008 and related appropriation bills. In doing so I also express my support for the second reading amendment standing in the name of the member for Melbourne, Mr Tanner. Australia is very fortunate to be riding the wave of an extraordinary period of global growth. That growth is being driven by developing countries, such as China and India, which have contributed more than 60 per cent of global growth over the last five years and which now account for half of global GDP. As I have said both in this House and publicly before, Australia’s own growth remains relatively modest—below three per cent. I consider that that growth has been constrained because of the failure of the Howard government to recognise that the Australian economy has hit the wall when it comes to labour market infrastructure capacity.

On the issue of labour market considerations and the shortage of skills, the opposition also supports every endeavour by government at a state and federal level, in association with the private sector, to increase apprenticeship training in Australia. I am very fortunate in my electorate to have the old Northland high school, which has turned into a cluster operation with respect to TAFE training in the northern suburbs of Melbourne. In welcoming the announcements by the Leader of the Opposition in his budget response, I hope that, whilst that money is available for apprenticeship training across individual high schools, the schools in my electorate again pool their resources to continue the growth and expansion of the Northland apprenticeship training system, which is a model that every region of Australia should think about. It is a group of high schools working collectively to create a system by which our young people go to a central apprenticeship training centre each week. They are taken out of the school environment to work in a semi-work environment to gain apprenticeship skills and to start their road to work. I really promote and support the Northland training and education centre in my electorate and congratulate the high schools which have been part of that development with money that has been previously granted by ANTA—the Australian National Training Authority—and also by the state government, with huge support from local employers across a range of industries. It is an example of what we should be doing collectively: putting aside politics and working with the private sector and state governments towards increasing apprenticeship training in Australia.

Having said that, the issue of—

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