Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Just on the question of conventions in the consideration in detail of budget estimates, I would remind members present in the Main Committee, just in case they have forgotten, that one of the conventions of the previous government was to send parliamentary secretaries to this part of the parliamentary program. I certainly recall that happening year after year when I was shadow minister for health. Obviously, the convention has changed, with me appearing on my own behalf as the responsible minister in the chamber today. The minister for health may like to speak about how the parliamentary secretary for health was sent routinely to deal with the consideration in detail of the budget estimates for health, one of the biggest government areas of expenditure.

Moving on from a discussion of the conventions of how this is dealt with, I turn firstly to the contribution by the member for Shortland. I am distressed to hear that people in her electorate were so shabbily treated by the former Howard government, and I can certainly understand the distress of parents who have seen their child disengage from school in the hope that they were going to get a better opportunity only to find that that opportunity, as promoted by the previous government, was not real. Obviously, training requires access to tools and equipment; work experience needs to be real, and that requires partnerships with local employers. In that regard, this government is determined to do better. We believe that the Howard government engaged in more than a decade of neglect when it came to skills formation. This was in fact dealt with very revealingly by the member for Goldstein when he indicated that the Howard government was well aware that a skills crisis was coming, waited for it to hit with full force and did not make appropriate investments in skills formation.

The approach of this government is going to be very different. As the budget papers reflect, we have determined that we will invest $2.5 billion in trades training centres in secondary schools. They will be facilities which do have the necessary equipment—benches, if that is appropriate for the training; kitchens, if that is appropriate for the training; computer equipment, if that is appropriate for the training—for students to use and learn on.

In relation to vocational education and training more generally, the government have created the $11 billion Education Investment Fund and have specifically given the vocational education and training sector access to that fund. We believe that there is a need for major capital investment and renewal in the sector if it is going to be in shape to meet the skills needs of the 21st century.

See this speech in context