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

Prior to the election, Tony Abbott announced the Trade Support Loans scheme, which a number of people have referred to in this House. But what he failed to do prior to the election—and has failed to do so often—was tell apprentices that his government would scrap Labor's $1 billion Tools for Your Trade program. On budget night a number of people were shocked, including many of the apprentices currently relying on this program. In my own electorate of Bendigo a few days after the budget, participating in the Walk a Day in My Shoes program, I was at the Country Cob Bakery in Kyneton. They have two apprentices. One is mature aged and the other is a young man who took up his apprenticeship after finishing year 12. They spoke about the shock of learning that this program had been scrapped at short notice, and they asked how they were going to buy the tools that they needed for their baking apprenticeship. A lot of their coursework these days is online because Kyneton is an area where there is no TAFE. Because of state government funding cuts to TAFE, the Bendigo TAFE has closed the Kyneton campus. So the only way these students could do their coursework was via their own computer at home. They were planning to use their Tools for Your Trade payments to purchase those computers and to pay for the internet access to be able to do their coursework online. After meeting with those apprentices a few weeks ago, I caught up with them on the weekend and they said they still do not know whether they will be able to purchase the equipment. I asked them whether they would consider taking out a trade support loan. The answer to that question was, 'Only if I have to. Only if there is no other way to get more money in my budget will I take out a loan.' The idea of having debt before you had even started your career is not something that they were in favour of.

In this debate earlier, Bob Baldwin said that it was clear that the tools for trade program would be replaced. I hope that is the case, that the government has a new policy it is going to announce. I call on the minister to provide evidence of this and to outline this new particular claim in his summing up speech, because that would be great news to those young apprentices in Kyneton and in the electorate of Bendigo, who want the tools for trade program in its original form.

However, this bill seeks, as others have outlined, to replace the tools for trade program with a loans scheme for apprentices, where they could, through their lifetime, incur up to $20,000 in debt. The reason why Labor is supporting this is that there needs to be something to help these young apprentices. I do not like it. I do not think it is the right way to go. But if those Kyneton apprentices have no other way to purchase their tools and choose to take this option of debt, then it is good that they have at least got something. But it is not good enough.

Many apprentices who have already completed their trades are worried. They are now waiting on these payments. They are expecting to receive them, but they may be cancelled. Many people who have already purchased their tools are now in a situation of debt. Their employers are also concerned that they have entered into an arrangement, and they do not know who is going to be able to support them with these tools. As I said, the idea of getting yourself into a loan is not something that is attractive to a lot of young people.

The Abbott government has taken the axe to support for apprentices. As well as axing the tools for trade program, they have axed the Australian Apprenticeships Access Program, they have axed the Australian Apprenticeships Mentoring Program, and they have axed the Apprentice to Business Owner Program. It is further evidence of how this government does not really get it when it comes to supporting apprentices. This government is quick to get you to take up a loan and generate a bit of income for them to make it look good in their budget papers, but yet it does very little to fund the programs that help apprentices and that help businesses keep apprentices.

The government have also confirmed that they are looking to outsource the debt management for trade support loans. That is a huge issue for people. The idea that—unlike the HELP debt, which the government is supposed to manage—you could be in the hands of private debt collectors for a loan that the government has given you is simply not fair. It is an unfair burden to place on people as young as 16 who are seeking a trade.

But let us be honest about this area. The Liberals just cannot be trusted on the issue of education. We have to look at their track record. We have to look at it because it speaks to why I do not believe that this loan scheme will be very popular with young people. Federally, there have been cuts to trade training centres. We hear lots of talk from people saying they did not build enough. But they did build some, and the ones that they built are very successful. The critique of the trades training program was that it was not rolled out fast enough, not that it was not a good program. So what the government should be doing, if they believed it was not rolled out fast enough, is investing more money in the trade training centre program, not less.

In my own electorate of Bendigo there is a great network of schools in the Bendigo town working together. Thirteen schools are part of the trades training network. But the areas in my electorate to miss out on trade training centres were Castlemaine and Kyneton. They are disappointed that they have missed out on the opportunity to build a trade training centre, because this government has scrapped the program.

The state Liberals also have an appalling record when it comes to TAFE and vocational skills in education. The state government has cut, already, $1.2 billion from TAFE. It has had a huge impact on regional students. As I mentioned, there are campuses that have been closed directly because of state Liberal government funding cuts to TAFE. Apart from closing the Kyneton campus, at the campus of BRIT there have been over 150 job losses. There have been 36 courses cut from the Bendigo campus. Because of the funding cuts, because of the courses being cut, my local TAFE, BRIT, has now been forced into a merger with the Kangan-Batman Melbourne based TAFE. This is an area that demonstrates how the government simply does not understand how to deliver vocational skills in the region. Bendigo has forever lost its stand-alone TAFE in a town which has had a school of mines for over 150 years. It no longer has a mines course. It no longer has a stand-alone TAFE. The Melbourne takeover has been done without consultation with the broader community. There was money put on the table by the state government, effectively bribing TAFEs to merge. It demonstrates, again, how Liberals in government—state or federal—cannot be trusted. They cannot be trusted to administer this loan scheme. I understand why people are sceptical about taking up a loan.

In relation to the state of our TAFEs in Victoria, I have mentioned the Kangan-Batman. This is the one that Bendigo will be merging with. They have had 52 courses cut. They have lost 172 staff. Students have been slugged with increased fees. There has been a massive drop in student numbers, and that is because of the increase in fees. Bendigo TAFE, as I have mentioned, does not fare much better. They have also had a massive drop in students. It is because the Liberals cannot be trusted in this critical area of delivering TAFE and training. They are scrapping a system that works and they are replacing it with a system that just sees students get themselves into more debt. The area of apprenticeships and skills in our community is not something that you can ignore. That is why it is so disappointing that this government has scrapped programs that were working.

Yes it is true that 48 per cent of apprentices are not completing training. They are not completing it right now. But rather than looking at why they are not completing their training, the government is saying 'you can just get yourself into further debt'. That is simply not good enough. The programs need to be there, the TAFEs need to be there, the support and mentoring needs to be there, and this government has scrapped the assistance.

Given the attrition rate for apprentices is so high, there needs to be more funding in the system. The current apprenticeship system is under strain due to a number of challenges: there is national inconsistency; there are poor completion rates; there is a persistence that it be time served as opposed to competency based delivery; and further application for the pathways needs to be invested. These are not just my words but the words of industry starting to speak out.

I think about some of our local traditional apprenticeships and traditional courses that we have. Hawkei, which is being built at the Bendigo Thales site, is a great project. We hope the government signs on to build the Hawkei in Bendigo. This particular establishment used to be the old Australian Defence Industries. Back in the day when it was owned by the federal government, before it was privatised, they had 100 apprentices—25 in each year level. Today Thales Bendigo has two. I worry about the future of high-tech skills manufacturing in this country if, within one lifetime, we have gone from 100 apprentices at this one local facility down to two. They are not alone. As we have seen over and over again, when we lose manufacturing, we not only lose those high skilled jobs but we also lose our major education provider for people with skills and trades, particularly in heavy metal manufacturing.

The recent budget announcements seem to be designed to make it more difficult for our young people to gain a skilled qualification. We are not just talking about what has been scrapped in the way of support for apprentices but about what is making it harder for people to obtain a university qualification. The biggest deterrent for people from a regional background and the biggest deterrent for people from a low socioeconomic background is cost. Saying 'that is fine; you can get yourself into $100,000-worth of debt' is not good enough. What people in the regions want are opportunities for young people. They want to be able to gain an apprenticeship, they want there to be a strong well-resourced TAFE sector to support them and they want to be able to go on to university if they choose to do so. But what we have seen from this government are continued broken promises in this area.

When the Prime Minister was opposition leader and announced that he was introducing this scheme, at no time did he say to young apprentices that he would be scrapping Labor's $1-billion Tools for Your Trade program, a program that was working and supporting hundreds of thousands of apprentices achieve their apprenticeship.

What will make it hard for these young apprentices apart from the changes in this particular area are the increased costs they will have as a result of the budget. The previous speaker spoke about the cost of fuel, which is another issue that will hit young apprentices hard. One of the speakers on the government side said that was okay. He said they can spend this loan on petrol. Is that really the design of this program? Is it a $20,000 loan so apprentices can get from a to b? I would suggest that getting them into debt around the very basics like transport and course costs is not the best way to support people doing an apprenticeship,. That is not the kind of nation we want to be setting up. There will be a generation of young people who cannot buy their first home because they have so much debt forced on them by the government when achieving their education.

If we are serious about developing the skills we need for the future and about ensuring that we have a strong economy going forward then we need to reinvest in our apprentices, not through loan schemes but through programming. We need to support businesses to take on more apprentices so that maybe one day the manufacturing sector in Bendigo, through organisations like Bendigo Thales or Hofmann's, can get back to employing the 100 apprentices that they used to have. It is important that as a nation going forward we do more to support our young people. But what we have seen from this government is nothing but broken promises.

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