Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the students who are with us in the chamber today and I say to them: I do not want you to be too upset about the grumbling going on on the other side—clearly they are not in government and that is why they are unhappy.

Today I would like to announce that we have four trade training centres that have been approved and are now completed in my electorate. In my electorate, high schools are separate from senior secondary colleges except for a number of private schools which go right through years 11 and 12. A couple of the colleges were successful in getting a trade training centre. St Brendan-Shaw College got a hairdressing trade training centre—and I notice that Vidal Sassoon died overnight, so there is a bit of symbolism in presenting this. They got about $1.5 million for a trade training centre particularly for training in hairdressing and services. Marist Regional College recently opened their trade training centre devoted to hospitality and, in particular, the development of pastry and bakery skills, which are difficult to acquire skills in at the moment. They also got $1.5 million. Importantly, in the Circular Head region, two schools got together and got two campus trade training centres: one devoted to construction, engineering, electro-technology and automotive skills, and the other combining to develop agriculture, aquaculture and horticulture. Students from both schools choose those activities and then go to the campuses that are presenting them. In all, there is about a $7.5 million investment in our trade training centres.

On top of that, we have recently had an announcement of an AgriTas centre of excellence for the training in services related to dairying and skills thereof. That is another investment of $4 million. In total there is about $11.5 million devoted to trade training and the development of skills, industry standard qualifications, in the north-west coast of Tasmania. It is a great investment and you cannot invest in anything better than our young people and most especially in their skills.

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