Ken Ticehurst (Dobell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Vocational and Technical Education. Would the minister advise the House of how the government is training more young Australians to meet our nation’s future skills needs?

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the question from the member for Dobell. In this country today we have an incredibly strong economy—a nation where we have too many jobs and not enough people. We have an amazing circumstance and it is such a big contrast to 10 years ago. The demographic changes in the world have fed into the fact that this is a very challenging environment for businesses to attract young people to the enormous and wide range of choices that they have.

As a government, we have spent a decade undoing Labor’s neglect. The ‘recession we had to have’ trashed a generation of could-have-been-trained Australians. It trashed 30,000 in one year under the leadership at that time of the member for Brand. In the electorate of Dobell, we had some 2,300 people in training as at June 2005. That is a 211 per cent increase on the number in training in 1995—and I know the member for Dobell is happy about that. In the publicly funded system today, 1.6 million people are being trained, which is half a million more than in 1995. The system is a world leader, but this government is not happy with that distinction. We can do, we will do and we are doing much more.

In June last year, 391,200 people were in training, whereas in 1995 there were 143,790. Over the next four years we will be spending $10.1 billion—nearly $5 billion to the states and $1.4 billion in new incentives. That is the biggest-ever contribution lift to the task of training young Australians from any Australian government in this nation’s history. For the Australian technical colleges proposal, there is $343 million for 25 colleges and we will announce soon on the Central Coast of New South Wales the outcome of our negotiations there—and I know the member for Robertson joins with the member for Dobell in being happy about that. There is the Tools for Your Trade Initiative, for which almost 35,000 people are eligible, and there are 42,300 people who are eligible for the trade learning scholarship.

Last Friday’s COAG saw the Prime Minister’s leadership on this issue hit a new height. We are now in an environment where it is no longer just lip-service to but the delivery of recognition of skills across the state boundaries, easier pathways for overseas qualifications to be recognised in this country and, in particular, an end to the ‘time served’ approach—the concept of ‘if you serve for four years, you are suddenly qualified’. We will see a defeat of that and we will see that before the end of the year. In particular, in New South Wales and Western Australia, we will see opportunities for school based apprenticeships as well.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Those opposite are interjecting with their complaints and lack of interest in this issue. They would be very wise to look at what Sharan Burrow and the ACTU have said today, where they are supporting the government’s efforts on competency based training and reflecting the calls from Australian industry for this to happen.