James Bidgood (Dawson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Appropriation Bill (No. 5) 2008-2009 and Appropriation Bill (No. 6) 2008-2009. I endorse entirely the comments of the member for Brisbane, Arch Bevis. I think they were very well put indeed. I would like to point out that in yesterday’s Daily Mercury from the seat of Dawson it said on the front page ‘Six million boost for kids’ jobs hopes’. This is good news for the people of Dawson. This good news is only made possible by the decisions of the Rudd Labor government on trade training centres. Each secondary school had the opportunity to get up to $1.5 million.

What happened in our region? Five schools got together and pooled their resources and now that centre is going to work with the Central Queensland University Mackay campus. We are going to have a $6 million trade training centre working in conjunction with the university and enabling our kids in our region. Mackay is a major service city to the Bowen Basin mines. Some of the things that were said yesterday about this complex indicated the widespread support at all levels. The principal, the head of campus, Trevor Davison, said, ‘The new Mackay trade centre will allow university students to do their full four-year engineering degree without leaving Mackay.’ That is looking after students in regional and rural communities. That is what this government is about: empowering kids through education all across Australia regardless of political representation. Every single school across the nation is going to benefit from these packages.

Trevor Davison went on to say: ‘We could offer third- and fourth-year engineering in Mackay. That is what I am aiming for.’ He said it would also offer opportunities for students to attend the centre through years 11 and 12 and then complete their apprenticeships or go on to degrees and be picked up by employers without needing to study elsewhere. This is keeping local kids in local regions and skilling them up to grow the economy not only locally but also nationally—and adding to the bottom line for this nation when those kids then take on full-time work within the mining service sector and the greater region of the seat of Dawson, which stretches from Mackay up into Proserpine, the Whitsundays, Bowen and Townsville. This is indeed very good news.

How could anybody vote against training up the kids in rural and regional Australia? But the other side of politics did and that is shameful. This government is determined to equip our kids with the skills they need for their futures and for the future of this nation. It will add to the bottom line of this nation and the future prosperity of this nation.

I would also like to pass on some comments from the schools that have pooled their funding together, as part of the Kevin Rudd education revolution, to build a multimillion dollar complex. Some of the comments are from Matt O’Hanlon of Mackay State High School. The principal there said that the centre would improve the level of skills being delivered in our region and kids would get a greater opportunity to take away higher skills—

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