Ian Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party, Minister for Industry) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for McPherson not only for her question but also for the great job, not only supporting my portfolio in the area of skills and training but, in fact, right across government. She is an incredibly hard-working local member. She has a great practical background from being an engineer by trade and she is one of those people who is set on producing outcomes. The member for MacPherson has certainly continued that attitude since she came into parliament. Again, I thank her for the work that she has done.

She is quite right: as she and I, my office and my department travel around Australia looking at the issues in relation to skills, training, traineeships and apprenticeships we are at times dismayed by the attitude of some people in relation to making sure that we are producing people who are employer ready. That is, people who are skilled up and ready to go into the workforce not only to secure a long-term future for themselves in their chosen profession—I am sure that that profession may change in time, and we all see that even amongst our families—but also making sure that when young people and mature apprentices, who play an important part in our training system, are turned out onto the street looking for a job that there is a job that they can go straight into.

The member for McPherson is right that there has been too much of an attitude—I am not saying that it is overwhelming, but I am saying it is prevalent—where there has been training for training's sake. There has also been an attitude that the only way you can go forward in this world is to go to university and get a degree. I remember very, very vividly the Labor Party giving Brendan Nelson an absolute flogging because he had the courage to say in the House, and I remember him saying it when he was the education minister, that a trade is worth every bit as much as a degree. I remember the Labor Party pillorying the then Minister for Education, Science and Training, Brendan Nelson, for saying that a trade is worth as much as a university degree. I assure those opposite that I believe that as well, and that the people on this side of the chamber believe that too.

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