Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Werriwa made a pitch for his electorate and, interestingly, complained that it did not get one of these new technical colleges. Of course, it is his party’s policy to do away with all of them if it wins office. His electorate has the prospect of a college being established under this government, but if his party were to win government it would have none. The Labor Party does not believe secondary education should include vocational education and training. Everyone must be educated to a level of brilliance that would allow them to go to university and to join a student union! When did all the state technical education institutions disappear? It was while the Hawke government was in power. They were all closed down by state governments; they did not need any of that.

The member talked about 457 visas. The real skills shortage in Australia today is in the semiskilled work force, and 457 visas do not apply in that area. Meatworks all around Australia are finding it difficult to get the semiskilled workers they need because under the coalition government’s economic management those workers have found better and higher-paying jobs that are obviously more appealing. That is a tragedy in my electorate. Fortunately, some of the job vacancies are being filled by backpackers. However, the reality is that the people who would normally being doing those semiskilled jobs now have more highly paid jobs in other areas. The government has established 20 of these technical colleges and this legislation, among other things, provides funding for the establishment of another three.

The member for Werriwa was at pains to tell us that the present shortage of skilled workers was all the government’s fault. The Labor Party still argues that no apprenticeship should be less than five years. That means five years of study in addition to on-the-job training. In 1996, when this government won office, only 31,000 apprentices completed their training. Over the past four years, under the Howard government, 544,000 apprentices have completed their training. It may be an apples-and-oranges comparison, but I did a simple calculation and multiplied the 31,000 apprenticeships completed under the previous government by four and got 124,000, which is less than one-third of the number completed under this government. There are some good reasons for that difference.

I was an employer for many years and during that time there was no such thing as apprenticeships for chefs. When they were introduced, I was happy to provide job opportunities in a country town for young men who wanted that training. For the first time I had a vision of not having to employ an immigrant from southern Europe or elsewhere as a chef because Australia did not provide that training. I remind the House of the days when we had wall-to-wall awards, which imposed strict limits on the number of apprentices who could be employed. The number of apprentices employed was limited by the number of senior employees. It was argued that they needed to be there in sufficient numbers to train the apprentices. Apprentices were also quarantined from being members of a union because the unions were interested only in the senior employees and the jobs available to them.

I was involved in the administrative side of the racing industry as a committee member and the Chairman of the Western Australian Turf Club. The club approached the appropriate authorities in Western Australia to see whether we could establish an apprenticeship for farriers. It is a well-paid profession and a tough job. The only way to become a farrier was to do casual work and learn on the job. There was no proper process or academic-style training involved. To this day there is no such apprenticeship because the committee, which is dominated by trade union officials, knocked back the proposal on the ground that the program had no capacity to provide multiskilling. I asked whether it was expected that a 14- or 15-stone farrier should be trained in the skills of a jockey. It was a silly objection, but none of the trade union representatives on that committee wanted a new-style apprenticeship in Western Australia.

Many years ago I looked at employment in the fishing industry out of Geraldton, which along with a number of smaller southern ports catches 10,000 tonne rock lobsters a year. I saw 15-year-olds working as deckies and earning about $50,000 a year on a piecework basis. The trade unions hated that and have tried to unionise the fishing industry for years. Those involved tell them to buzz off; they do not want their help. Of course, 15-year-old kids could negotiate their share and they were paid about $50,000.

It became obvious to me that in later years these young people had no skills that qualified them to take over the control of a fishing vessel—that is, to get a skipper’s ticket. So I called a meeting of all secondary schools in Geraldton and asked if they could have a focus in their secondary years on developing programs and curricula so that the kids could get those skills at school and not wait till they were 30 or 35, when the opportunity arose. By that time they would be married, have a couple of kids running around the lounge room and would not want to have to go back to TAFE.

Of course, for the information of those present, the foundation of navigation is trigonometry. If you grab the average kid, who is not really planning to be an engineer or a scientist or somebody at that nature, and ask him if he will do trigonometry, he will say no. But ask him, ‘Would you like to do a course of navigation?’ and he will say, ‘Yeah, I’d like to do that.’

The principals were very impressed, but the TAFE colleges said, ‘Don’t you dare get into our territory.’ There was a demarcation dispute. In other words, they were saying, ‘Send your kids onto us after they have left secondary school.’ Fortunately, as I understand—although I have not checked it for some time—an accommodation was eventually reached and the secondary school kids go over to TAFE and do those subjects. I always remember my next-door neighbour, who had a son one year older than mine who was not academically bright. His father got him an apprenticeship at 15 and insisted he start a builder’s registration ticket. He did, and at about 17 or 18 years old he came out with both qualifications. The firm of Bunnings, where he was employed, plucked him out of the cabinet shop and put him on the front desk. In later years he managed a big timber company in Victoria, where he still resides. That is what happens when someone makes it happen.

Isn’t it amazing! It was a parent, a caring parent, who actually set all that up. Day after day we hear bleatings about young people having to negotiate their own contracts. I heard some on the ABC, which scours the world for someone to criticise us. They had some American saying, ‘Isn’t it terrible that young people have to go and negotiate their own contract.’ Of course they do not. As has been pointed out, they cannot enter a contract without the signature of a parent or guardian. And who would believe that any decent parent would not attend with an employer at the first interview of their children?

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