Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to speak on the Social Security Amendment (2007 Measures No. 2) Bill 2007 because, like the member opposite, we are very determined to ensure fairness and equity as a result of this bill, particularly for grandparents and relatives who care for children.

Before I get to that section of the bill, it is obvious that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition has made a number of sweeping statements which have to be addressed. I need to bring them to the attention of the House because if you allow these things to go unchallenged people might actually believe them. I suspect that the more the opposition make these statements the more they tend to believe them. The member opposite refers to the fact that Australia has a skills crisis. Yes, there is a shortage of skills in this country, not because this government has not made provision—in fact, it has made strong provision for this sector over the years—but because we have an absolute boom in the economy. This economy is growing at a rate which has never been seen before, and we are sucking up skilled workers like we have never seen before. I am pleased to say that just the other day I was able to introduce into the House the bipartisan report of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration entitled Temporary visas ... permanent benefits: ensuring the effectiveness, fairness and integrity of the temporary business visa program. The report helps to address the current skills shortage because of the huge demand for skilled workers in many sectors across Australia.

We know that several years ago, under the Prime Minister’s direction, the federal government took measures with regard to the Australian technical colleges, which are operating very well. I have one of the campuses in my electorate; the other part of the campus is in the seat of Hasluck. I visited the college recently and I noted each one of the young year 11 men and women there were delighted to be involved in skills training at that level. This is in contrast to the situation under the state governments, which have underfunded the TAFE sector—and, in fact, have taken funding out of it—and have done their best to drive down the vocational education aspect of skills training.

Do not take any notice of what Labor say; judge Labor not on what they say but on what they do. We recall the famous Bill Hunter ads years ago when Labor were in government, ‘job ready, here we come’. They cost a fortune—talk about political advertising! But these people did not come through apprenticeships; they came through short-term, temporary skill training centres. As I have said in this place before, they did a three-month brickie course and came out as a brickie—that sort of thing. As a result, these people were underskilled when they were put into the workforce.

When we first came to this parliament as the government, there were just over 100,000 apprenticeships in this country; now there are close to 500,000. This government has nurtured apprenticeships in this country like never before, and that is our way of upskilling this country. So when the Deputy Leader of the Opposition prattles on about this sort of stuff, we know she is ideologically bent because she is not telling the truth on this issue, because this government has a proud record on upskilling the workforce.

In some respects the opposition are trying to talk down the economy. They would like to see the boom in the mining sector, which is very strong in this country, cease, because that would suit their political purposes. Can I give you a tip? The fact is that even the most pessimistic commentator says that the boom in Western Australia will go on for at least seven years.

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