Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Last week my office was inundated with phone calls and letters from apprentices in the electorate who had just received the following letter from the CVGT AusNAC Australian Apprenticeships Centre. The letter states:

On 13 May 2014, the Government handed down the 2014-2015 Budget. As part of the Budget, changes to payments for Australian Apprentices were announced. The Tools For Your Trade programme will cease from 1 July 2014.

It goes on to say:

To support apprentices, the Trade Support Loans programme will be introduced.

It further states:

Once we receive more information regarding … the Trade Support Loans, we will provide you with this information …

So what did the government do on budget night? They scrapped a program that local apprentices need and said that there was a plan for a future program but they did not have the details on it. What are apprentices getting in touch with me about? Why are they upset? They do not know how they are going to buy their tools on 1 July, because the government have no plan. They have scrapped a program that was working.

In my part of the world, most of the course work these days is done online. The Tools For Your Trade program was being used to purchase computers so that people could do their online work. The program was also being used to purchase the tools that apprentices needed. I call on the government to rethink this measure and reintroduce it, because this program was working.

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