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

The member for Menzies helpfully yells out, ‘What about technical colleges?’ Thank you very much, Member for Menzies. I have looked at the track record of the Howard government on technical colleges, and let me illuminate the House on their record. In 2004 the Liberals promised that Australian technical colleges would help 21,000 students over four years at a cost of $289 million. Okay, that was a promise. What in fact happened? It cost $440 million to establish 24 colleges that ended up with 3,000 enrolled students. Let me just give you those numbers again—you would not have to blitz the grade 3 NAPLAN test to understand the import of these numbers: $440 million for 3,000 students enrolled, a cost per student of $140,000.

So let us not hear any nonsense from the opposition about having a better plan. Their track record in government is absolutely clear: $140,000 per student, watched skills shortages coming and just waved their hands in the air and did absolutely nothing. And now the Leader of the Opposition sitting there is a risk to the trade training centres in schools, particularly the more than 300 schools that have had funds approved and who are going to have those funds ripped out of their hands by the Leader of the Opposition. The search for a member of the coalition prepared to stand up for their electorate will continue. We have not found one yet.

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