Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I wish to speak in support of the second reading amendment to the Social Security Amendment (Apprenticeship Wage Top-Up for Australian Apprentices) Bill 2007. It states:

“whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House welcomes additional financial support for first and second year apprentices but condemns the Government’s complacency and neglect of vocational education and training over the past 11 long years seen through:

(1)

the Government slashing its investment in vocational education and training by 13 per cent in the three years to 2000;

(2)

between 2000 and 2004 increasing this investment by only 1 per cent;

(3)

the failure of the Government to address the acute shortages of skilled labour across Australia, which the Government itself estimates to be a shortfall of 240,000 skilled workers by 2016;

(4)

the cynical political response to the national skills crisis of a standalone network of Australian Technical Colleges that will only produce 10,000 graduates by 2010; and

(5)

the failure of the Government to address apprenticeship completion rates, with almost 50 per cent of apprentices cancelling or withdrawing from training each year while Labor has been calling since 2005 for $2000 payments to encourage completion of traditional trade apprenticeships”.

This last point is a matter of great concern. A number of speakers in this debate have reflected on apprenticeship completion rates. In my own electorate I have been made aware of an example of a first-year apprentice carpenter who started off on a wage of $140 per week. Even at the end of that first year, that apprentice carpenter was receiving only $190 per week in his hand. That apprentice carpenter dropped out in order to pursue more lucrative arrangements for unskilled labourers. Indeed, there are jobs around where people can earn $500 or $600 a week and even up to $1,000 a week as unskilled labourers.

We in this House know that it is better for the individual to complete their apprenticeship or traineeship. We know that it is in this nation’s interests that we develop the skills. We say things like, ‘It’s hard to put an old head on young shoulders,’ but frankly it is up to us to ensure that young people are better rewarded for sticking at their apprenticeships.

In my area there is an organisation known as Apprenticeships Plus. They and their hardy band of host employers do a terrific job in relation to apprenticeships. The employers agree to take on the responsibility of having an apprentice or trainee in their workplace. They support that person through on-the-job and off-the-job training across the entire course of their placement. Our local community recognises that one of the biggest financial commitments and the most important investment that any business can make is in its staff. I certainly want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the time, the initiative and the diligent efforts that the host employers and their staff have provided for their apprentices.

Whilst outcomes from taking on apprentices and trainees vary widely, host employers continue to show a commitment to community participation and a willingness to invest in school leavers, job seekers and secondary school students from within their local areas. I offer my appreciation to those host employers who create opportunities to provide a base for lifelong commitment to a vocation and give apprentices and trainees life skills and choices.

Apprenticeships Plus, like others that operate in this field, have advised me that there is a very high rate of attrition in the first 12 months. Indeed, each year they have to set a budget for the number of apprentices who commence, the number of apprentices who complete and the number of apprentices who drop out. Of those who do not complete successfully, most leave for two reasons. One is a change of career path and the other is that they are simply not earning enough.

For the coming year, Apprenticeships Plus has framed its budget in terms of the prospect that some 40 per cent of apprentices and trainees will drop out. That is simply not good enough. They have given me the example of an apprentice in the horticulture field working in parks and gardens who left school at year 11. This apprentice was earning between $8 and $8.50 per hour. Then he moved out of home and the consequence of his moving out of home and having to pay rent was that he threw in the apprenticeship for a $10-an-hour job sorting recyclable plastics for a well-known recycling company. This is the kind of problem that Australia faces and that this government needs to address.

The bill before the House is aimed at keeping people in apprenticeships. It comes some two years after Labor began calling for additional payments to apprentices in the traditional trades in the form of a $2,000 trade completion bonus for apprentices. It has all the hallmarks of a government dragged kicking and screaming, in the shadows of an election, to do something. The latest annual figures show that in 2005 over 128,000 apprentices and trainees cancelled or withdrew from their courses. That is a staggering 49 per cent of all those who commenced apprenticeships or traineeships that year.

While the government seeks to talk about 400,000 apprentices in training, it fails to mention that only 140,000 of these apprentices are completing their training and it fails to mention the fact that less than a quarter of those in training are undertaking traditional trade apprenticeships. After 11 long years of this government being in office, the average number of traditional trade apprenticeships has been around 120,000 a year. The average achieved by the previous Labor government was 13 per cent higher, at 137,000.

When you look at completion rates for these traditional trade apprenticeships, an area where Australia faces the most dire shortages, the government’s record is even worse, with only 24,700 traditional apprentices completing their training in 2005. Over the term of the Howard government, completion rates for traditional trade apprenticeships have fallen from 64 per cent in 1998 to 57 per cent in 2005. This is significantly less than in Labor’s last year in office.

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