Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I take that interjection, Member for Kennedy. It does increase demand—and demand increases the opportunity for all our tradespeople to get involved. It stimulates the working economy of our area. To give some context, my electorate would be classified as a working-class electorate. It is an outer-metropolitan area. It is sufficiently out of central Sydney that we have a regional position. We have a good conglomerate of councils, the Macarthur Regional Organisation of Councils, MACROC, that work very strongly to look at ways to provide opportunities for our young people—for example, through our university system and our TAFE colleges. But they cannot do all that much if we do not have the job opportunities to stimulate employment.

Following on from what the member for Kennedy said, we are now seeing those opportunities returning. We are seeing people enrolling in trade based courses and we are seeing employers taking on apprentices, confident in the knowledge that, apart from what we are doing here in terms of the first home owners grant, each of the state departments of education, the Catholic education system and all the independent schools out there are about to participate in the most unprecedented federal government investment in education this country has ever seen, with $14.7 billion being invested in the system. Every primary school in the country will be given the opportunity to access up to $3 million for halls—areas which can be used by the community as well. Every high school will be eligible to apply for a new science block or a new language centre. Every school in my electorate—62 schools in all—will be able to access up to $200,000 for maintenance and refurbishment. That is very good for education. Investing in education is a very good investment in our future economic growth. All the economic analysis I have seen says that what you put into education now directly contributes to economic growth and productivity in the next 10 years.

That is a good investment in terms of the future of this country, but it is an immediate investment in jobs. Each primary school that accesses that $3 billion—and hopefully it is every primary school in my electorate—will engage tradespeople to undertake the work and architects and engineers to prepare and design the necessary work for approval. This will be good for my area. It is a complete investment in education, it specifically targets the generation of employment and, as the member for Kennedy says, it will stimulate demand. We make no apology for that and we certainly make no apology for entering into this new scheme of arrangements with state and territory governments. They have a role. You will not hear us on this side of the House carping about what it is they do and blaming them. We want to get in and work with them, as we want to get in and work with local governments. I was fortunate enough to attend a fair portion of the last national local government forum in Canberra. It did not matter whether I spoke to Liberal mayors, Labor mayors or Callithumpians, quite frankly, because each mayor recognised that this is a genuine attempt to enter into a new partnership with the third tier of government in this country. We actually believe in all the tiers of government. We believe that we all have a role and we are committed to making those roles work not only now and until the next election but also into the future. That is the legacy we want to leave our young people.

See this speech in context