Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

An extraordinary contribution by the member for Forde. He tells us: 'Trade training in schools and vocational education in schools is really important, and so we have cut the funding. We have taken $950 million out of the forward estimates because we believe this is so important, and we might be thinking of building one facility in one campus somewhere in South Australia.' What an extraordinary nonsense.

We all understand, and I think it is widely accepted across both sides of the chamber, that we do need to re-engage with that trades culture, and certainly this has been the language of federal government for quite some time. We do need to redevelop and restrengthen that culture of the trades, and that is precisely why the Labor government put in place this funded program to develop state-of-the-art facilities in schools. I have to say that in Western Australia we have 37 of these facilities that have been built in the past five years. I think that is actually a very good outcome and a very good rate of progress. And of course it does not just apply to the 37 schools on which those facilities are built. For example, at Morley Senior High School, which has now got a fantastic automotive centre, there are students that come from five different schools to do their trade training and their pre-apprenticeship programs. At John Forrest Secondary College in our electorate, where the school has set up their trade training centre in conjunction with the Master Plumbers and Gasfitters Association of WA, they have students coming from 22 schools to do their trade training and pre-apprenticeship program.

It is incredibly vital that we have a systematic approach, not just a bit of random pork-barrelling—to the member for Forde—but that we have a concerted program. I look at the places across Western Australia that have got them, and students come from the north of the state and from right down as far away as Denmark in the southern part of the state. They are spread evenly throughout the state and they have been a great boon. It is really important that the kids who are now staying at school until they are 17 are introduced in year 10, at the very least, to a variety of trades. They get a taste of a variety of different trades, and then, over their years 11 and 12, develop a real understanding. It makes them more effective for employers. Employers are obviously going to benefit if they get kids with three years of real exposure to those trade skills before they enter their apprenticeships. They are going to be a much more effective product. They are going to know that this is the trade that they want to do, and they are going to be more effective for their employer.

We know there are special skills in dealing with adolescents and in training adolescent students. The attrition rate in the TAFE-developed products is far greater than it is in these school-based projects. They provide a more supported environment that 15-, 16- and 17-year-olds need in order to stay focused and embrace this training. I think this has been an incredibly successful program, and it is one that, if we have any belief that we need to have proper vocational education and trade training in our schools, we must commit to.

There has been no alternative proposal put in place by the federal government. Under the Howard government, we had the proposal where we had these UFOs that were just randomly located across a few places. That was not a comprehensive program. We have to work with our high schools to deliver vocational education in a proper and systematic way, and all of the evidence that I have seen to date tells me that these trade training centres in Western Australia have been an absolute success.

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