Michael Ferguson (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this afternoon to speak on the Australian Technical College Northern Tasmania and the typically dishonest and opportunistic behaviour of the Labor Party. Last week I was contacted by a media outlet which had heard rumours that enrolment numbers at the Australian Technical College Northern Tasmania campus were at low levels. The outlet was being backgrounded by a person indicating that the new ATC was ‘doomed’. This rumour has been shown to be a straight-out lie, as there are in fact more enrolment applications for next year than the 150 students the college can take in a year group.

However, that is not the immediate issue here at all. What I am concerned about is how a Labor senator can shamelessly exploit a rumour about enrolments by turning this into an all-out attack on the technical college in Northern Tasmania and those that are working very hard to skill up the local workforce. The Labor Party have chosen to use their time in opposition to do nothing more useful than to simply oppose. The Australian technical colleges have been set up to help address the shortage of skilled labour in this country, a problem caused by consumer demand and historically low unemployment—not, as the Labor Party would have us believe, because of diminishing investment by the Australian government, whose record puts Labor’s record in office to shame. The Labor Party do not want to support the technical college. They would like to see it fail and with it the opportunities for younger people. (Time expired)