Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment Participation) Share this | Hansard source

The previous government failed to address the skill problems in this country. Indeed, the shadow minister himself in his first speech to parliament indicated that it was a major challenge. He was quite right to underline the deficiencies of the previous government in providing those skills. By comparison, since we have been elected we have announced 700,000 training places over the next five years, 309,000 of which will be training places for job seekers. This is very important because, as we know, today we have employers in this country crying out for skilled labour. They cannot fill those vacancies because those opposite did nothing to address the skills crisis in this country.

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