Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is another contribution that is heavy on style but of little substance. It is worth reflecting on Labor's record on trade training centres over the last six or seven years. There was neglect, under-delivery, over-promising and a whole range of issues that this government now has to clean up. Let's go through a list. In 2007 the former Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, said Labor would build trade training centres in every one of Australia's 2,650 secondary schools at a cost of $2.5 billion. Yet only 304 centres were in operation when the government changed in September 2013. Those opposite, when they were in government, could never have delivered a trade training centre in every secondary school in Australia.

I thank the member for Kingston for bringing this motion to the House because it allows us to properly reflect on what this government is doing in the vocational education and training sector. Those opposite, when they were in government, never provided the funding to provide all of those 2650-odd training centres. Much like many other things that the previous government did not do, an Australian National Audit Office report found in 2011 that the program was riddled with delays. For example, it took 240 days between a school receiving an in-principle agreement to build a trade training centre and a contract being signed. Furthermore, documents obtained by the coalition through FOI show that Labor's trade training centres were a spectacular failure: program evaluators could not tell who had received training; trade training centres failed to address skills shortages; trade training centres were skewed towards providing low-level qualifications; and more than half of the trade training centre students failed to find a job and only 20 per cent of job seekers found work in an area relevant to their training. In addition, industry raised many concerns about inconsistencies in the quality of training, qualifications and equipment offered from one trade training centre to the next, along with feedback that students do not graduate with the skills employers need.

Let us contrast that with what we are seeking to do in government, and I agree with member for Kingston: we should look to provide support to those students at school who do not want to follow a tertiary path. In fact, I think it is important to reflect that we do need to lift the communities view of the importance and quality of a trade. Some 50 per cent of Australia's millionaires today started off as tradespeople, so trade is an enormous benefit and qualification.

But there is another reason we need to focus on trades and building our skills capacity: the average age of a tradesman today is 51. Many of those people are going to retire in the next 10, 15 or 20 years and we are going to have a tremendous skill shortage. So it is entirely consistent with our government's view that we need a first-rate VET in school system that is valued as equally as a university pathway is valued. We need to elevate the status of trades and training, because we believe apprenticeships and traineeships must be seen as a first-class education and career choice for young Australians. It should never be considered a second-best option. That is why the coalition government are so focused on ensuring that we are strengthening vocational education and training in schools, and we see it as a vital component to our plan for a stronger Australia.

Look at the success of a body like the Australian Industry Trade College—and we are discussing putting in a new campus at Beenleigh in my electorate of Forde. Ninety seven per cent of the students that go through that school graduate with a job and the qualifications to work in the industry that they have been working in for the past two years. That is the model. That is the solution, and that is what this government is seeking to achieve for the students in Australia.

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