Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Lalor for her question. I know she is genuinely interested in vocational education and training and apprenticeships and, as a former principal of a public high school in Victoria, she has a longstanding interest in educational outcomes for students. I am sure she and I do not always agree on the best pathway to achieve those outcomes, but I do not doubt her genuine interest in achieving the best outcomes possible for students in Lalor. In terms of apprenticeships and vocational education and training, the specific answer to her question is that 25,000 trade support loans have been accessed since the program began in July 2014 and it is a vastly superior program. I do not have the percentage but I am happy to ask my department to take that question on notice. I can tell her it is 25,000 loan applications.

To compare it to the Tools for Your Trade program, it is a vastly preferable scheme because it supports apprentices in the same way as we are supporting students who go to university under the Higher Education Contribution Scheme. They receive a $20,000 loan, which they can access over four years. They can pay it back when they start earning over $53,000 a year, at the lowest rates possible, with a very low CPI interest rate. In fact, I do not think the Trade Support Loans program has a CPI interest rate. No, it is even more generous than the Higher Education Contribution Scheme, which is a CPI loan rate. The trade support loans are even more generous than that. I apologise because there is an Assistant Minister for Education and Training, Senator Simon Birmingham, who would know the details of that even better than I do. To compare it to the Tools for Your Trade, the amount of the program is $20,000 of trade support loans, whereas Tools for Your Trade was $5,500. So why would the Labor Party want to have a $5,500 grant when they could have a $20,000 loan with no interest, paid back when you start earning over $53,000? The payments for trade support loans in year one were up to $8,000. Lump sums for Tools for Your Trade were $800 in the first three months and $1,000 at 12 months, $1,000 at 24 months, $1,200 at 36 months and $1,500 on successful completion. So it was a heavily bureaucratised program and much smaller than the Trade Support Loans program.

The Trade Support Loans program will mean that the apprentice can decide what their priorities are. It could well be tools. It could be all sorts of things that the apprentice decides is what will help them to access and to stay in their apprenticeship. The member for Lalor would know that only about 50 per cent of apprentices have been completing their apprenticeships and that is unacceptable. It was unacceptable under the previous government; it would be unacceptable under any government. We want to encourage young people to complete their apprenticeship. The Trade Support Loans program gives them the encouragement and the chance to do so. It means they will be able to access a very generous scheme and my belief is that, as the years progress, the member for Lalor will be pleased as the rate of apprentices completing their apprenticeships increases because of this government's excellent policy.

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