Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Vocational Education) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House calls on the Government to:

(1) acknowledge that:

(a)the drop in apprentices currently in training from 417,700 in September 2013 to 319,700 in March 2015 will impact on the future availability of skilled workers in Australia; and

(b)apprenticeship commencements and completions are down approximately 20 per cent for the 12 months to 31 December 2014;

(2) recognise that the $1 billion in cuts to apprenticeship support, including Tools For Your Trade payments and mentoring and access programs, have had an impact on apprentice numbers;

(3) implement strategies as a matter of urgency to encourage more apprentices into training to prevent skills shortages in the future; and

(4) invest in skills and training young Australians to ensure that Australia does not have to rely heavily on Temporary Work (Skilled) visas (subclass 457) resulting from a lack of investment in skills and training.

I have to bring to the House's attention—and this is the reason why I put this notice of motion on the Notice Papera fairly dramatic recent release of figures on apprentice and trainee numbers in this country. In particular, I want to outline for people how the impact on apprentice and trainee numbers has been affected by government decision making and put a very strong call out to the government to reconsider what they are doing in this space.

First of all, what is the situation we find ourselves in? The National Centre for Vocational Education Research, NCVER, which is our premier data collection and analysis body in this sector, on Friday a week ago released its report Australian vocational education and training statistics: apprentices and trainees 2015—March quarter

What this report told us was that, since the government has been elected, nearly 100,000 apprentices have been lost in that time period.

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