Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to emphasise just how much this latest budget is going to impact the people of McEwen. It is always good to follow people such as the member opposite, the member for Cowan, who show absolutely no knowledge of what they are talking about. He talks about deficit, he talks about all these things but fails to mention that, at the same time as they are cutting every bit of support for apprentices, forcing them into debt, they want to make sure that people earning over $300,000 get $50,000, $2,000 dollars a week, in paid parental leave. They talk about the size of the debt but they fail to mention that in the nine months they have been in government they have increased the debt by $67 billion. So when the intellectually bereft are over there saying, 'We're paying back Labor's $1 billion debt a month,' they put taxes on business to make sure that their millionaire mates can have babies and get $50,000 or, as it works out, $48 per hour in paid parental leave.

Let us go to the other end of the scale and look at what is happening with apprentices. I notice the minister is in here—and I do not actually mind her too much; she is not one of the bad ones. She said that we are only talking about education. Not one of the colleagues she gave her talking points to actually mentioned apprenticeships. Those opposite have no idea about what happens with apprenticeships. You only have to listen to the minister's words. She said, 'Most MP's children are either overseas or working in overseas companies.' I do not know what land they are living in over there, but most kids I know in our area are trying to get a job, trying to get an apprenticeship.

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