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 update the House on how school based new apprenticeships are providing opportunities for young Australians?

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

I thank the member for Dobell for his question and can report to the House that some 15,300 people in years 11 and 12 are engaged in school based apprenticeships. In fact, over half of them are in the state of Queensland alone. The government believes very strongly in school based apprenticeships as being part of the way in which we can engage not only the young people of Australia and the education and training communities but also, importantly, the business community to understand the investment that they should make in their business through training people.

Of course the record level of expenditure in our most recent budget and the budget of last year includes a commitment of some $25.9 million, in an initiative to Group Training Australia, to help foster 7,000 more school based apprenticeship opportunities and, on top of that, the $343.6 million Australian technical colleges initiative will deliver another 7,500 school based apprenticeship opportunities. In fact, I noticed the South Australian education minister was in the Adelaide Advertiser today boasting how that state has in fact trebled school based apprenticeships—of course as a result of the initiatives of this government.

The member for Dobell comes from the state of New South Wales and in that state there are no school based apprenticeships in the form of certificate III in the trades. Let me be very clear about that. While a state like Queensland has some 2½ thousand young people involved in school based apprenticeships in the trades at certificate III level and above, in the state of New South Wales—and indeed in the state of Western Australia—because of the opposition of the CFMEU and other unions, this is not possible. The Prime Minister, just two weeks ago, wrote to the premiers of both of those states, asking them to keep their word to the COAG conference earlier this year, and indeed to the education ministers of each of those states to the training agreements they signed in October of last year. I would call on them to remove all of the impediments which continue to stand in the way of school based apprenticeships at certificate III level and above.

It is preposterous to think that—in a week when the New South Wales government tried to trick the people of New South Wales with an $18 million announcement which is about giving 36 days’ work experience to students attending just 10 schools, in the face of the fact that the Australian technical college proposal, which will provide over $100 million of funding in eight schools and 100 days of work experience and training to those young people—we have some 10,000 young people in New South Wales today denied an opportunity to do a school based apprenticeship at certificate III and above.

This government will continue to demand action, particularly from New South Wales and Western Australia. The question those opposite have got to ask themselves is: where do they stand, and why is it that they back the ambitions and views of the leaders of unions like the CFMEU, leaders like Andrew Ferguson and Kevin Reynolds, instead of backing the ambitions of young people, particularly in the state of New South Wales.