Barry Haase (Kalgoorlie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Transport and Regional Services. Would the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Transport and Regional Services update the House on the impact of Australia’s outstanding economic performance on rural and regional Australia? What is the government doing to assist regional businesses and address skills shortages, particularly in my electorate of Kalgoorlie?

Mark Vaile (Lyne, National Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Kalgoorlie for his question. Of course, the member for Kalgoorlie clearly understands the current strength of the Australian economy and so much of that strength is coming out of his electorate, particularly from the mining and resource sector. That sector is doing more than its bit to push unemployment down in Australia, where we have got a national unemployment figure of 4.8 per cent—much lower in Western Australia; I think about 3.7 per cent, as a result of what is going on in the member for Kalgoorlie’s electorate.

But, of course, the mining sector is also generating a lot of the demand for skills in Australia. It does not matter whether they are people from Western Australia or across the broader nation. The package announced today—Skills for the Future; $837 million—is adding to measures that we already have put in place to upskill the country beginning at the high school level, as the Prime Minister indicated, through the Australian technical colleges and year 11 and year 12. It will link those young people with industries that need those skills in the future and lead them into the workplace.

It is interesting to note, and the member for Kalgoorlie would recognise this, that the other advantage of this package is in terms of upskilling workers already in the workforce—people who might be working in some of the areas along the eastern seaboard in a particular trade that want to upskill so they can direct their skills into the mining and resources sector in Western Australia. The assistance that is provided in this package will help deliver extra workers into the areas of need where they can take advantage of the prosperity that is being generated by the mining sector in particular.

This is all part of a focus and a very clear direction the government is giving as far as the Australian economy is concerned. Since 1996, 1.9 million new jobs have been created in the economy—205,000 since Work Choices was introduced earlier this year; 205,000 since the sky was supposed to fall on the Australian economy. It has not fallen; it has gone in the other direction—real wages growth of 16.4 per cent.

We need to compare those sorts of statistics—the level of unemployment in Australia—against what it was in the early to mid-nineties. We all remember when the Labor Party was in office running the Working Nation program—where unemployment was, what was happening with skills and what was going on in the economy—and it is vastly different now. We will continue to introduce policies that are right for the time and that will deliver the skills that are needed in Australian industry to continue to secure the prosperity of the nation, particularly in areas of major growth and need like the member for Kalgoorlie’s electorate in Western Australia.