Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As someone who comes from a family of tradesmen and who continues to interact in a tradesmen-rich environment in Launceston, I rise to speak in support of the government's $1.9 billion trades support loans. There is strong support for this scheme across my electorate of Bass. Since the budget I have given a number of speeches across my electorate. In my roles as the patron of cycling in Tassie and the patron of Northern Tasmanian Netball, I have interacted with young people at schools and talked to them about how we are expanding opportunities across our country when it comes to earning—opportunities both in pre-degree courses but also, importantly, in vocational education and training.

The response that I get is very similar to the one that I got when I arrived at the Army Recruit Training Centre as the Commandant. They used to fundraise each year and fund a scholarship for a young person studying at the local university. But it became very clear that we were only touching part of our constituency in the Riverina environment, that there were a whole bunch of people undertaking vocational education and training who never had that opportunity. So we came up with a separate scholarship which we would award each year for a three-year period for someone doing an apprenticeship. It was a very welcome initiative. The comments I got related to fairness and acknowledging that there was more than just one pathway in our society, through university, and that there were other important pathways.

The tradesmen that I have discussed this with in my electorate of Bass are similarly positive about the scheme and the fact that it will target occupations on the National Skills Needs List such as plumbers, diesel mechanics, electricians and fitters. I have a friend in Launceston who has been a plumbing contractor of 37 years. His name is Andrew Foley. He says:

It's a long time coming, and anything we can do to help kids into a trade, as we do for young people into university, is a good thing.

He acknowledges that expansion of opportunity, not just for the 80,000 young people who will get an opportunity to do a pre-degree course under the HELP scheme with the additional opportunities that provides, but for apprentices as well. Another plumber friend, John Oldenhof, who is now in his 70s but is still putting in a full day's work and a whole lot of volunteering in my Lions Club, is another fan. John sees this also as an overdue measure that acknowledges the realities in our society. John says:

It doesn't matter where they start, providing they start, and this scheme has a very powerful incentive.

What Andrew and John and many other people in northern Tasmania like best about this scheme is that it has choice at its heart.

Apprentices can choose to access the full amount or part of it. And it does contain an important incentive: upon completion of training, the loan amount will be cut by 20 per cent, up to a value of $4,000. It is called reinforcing success and encouraging our young people to start something and to finish it. All too often, young apprentices do not complete their training because they cannot afford the costs associated with undertaking an apprenticeship, so this is about providing a hand- up early in the careers of our young people to ease their financial burden by front loading that financial assistance during the initial years when they need it most. That means support of up to $8,000 in the first year of the apprenticeship, $6,000 in the second, $4,000 in the third and $2,000 in the fourth. It is a clearly superior incentive to the $4,000 tool kit grant under those opposite which had become an unaccountable handout that did little to help apprentices complete their training.

So let's put the negativity away and acknowledge that young people are over $6,000 better off in their first year with this scheme compared to the previous one. Our hope is that they will complete their training, be rewarded with the $4,000 incentive deduction, go on and have productive careers, earn good wages and raise a family, pay their taxes and contribute to a healthy, prosperous society. The trade support loans will be repayable at the same income thresholds as university HELP loans when an apprentice starts earning a sustainable wage of above $50,000. Importantly, the loans are the best sorts of loans: they are interest free and constitute an early investment in the potential of the individual.

With that, I know a lot of other speakers are keen to have a say this evening, so I will cut my remarks short. I commend this bill to the House and I look forward to its commencement on 1 July.

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