Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Skills and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I'm glad to say that we put together agreement amongst all of the governments, because we were without an agreement before the election. We needed to bring those governments together, and that's what we did. We did so to the benefit of students, workers, businesses and our economy, and we'll continue to do more.

As the Prime Minister indicated, the National Cabinet is meeting this evening to make sure we continue this strategic investment in the skills that are needed. If we're going to transform the energy sector, we need skills. If we're going to enliven manufacturing through the National Reconstruction Fund, we need skills. If we're going to supply the labour and skills for our care economy, we have to have the right investment, as advised by Jobs and Skills Australia. We'll continue to do more in ensuring that we supply skills to workers, students and businesses because, without doing that, we'll continue the failure by those opposite in leaving so many areas across our labour market in short supply.

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