Kym Richardson (Kingston, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Vocational and Further Education. Would the minister outline to the House the progress of the government’s Australian technical colleges? Are there any alternative plans and what is the government’s response?

Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Minister for Vocational and Further Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Kingston for his question. He has been a powerhouse in making the technical college in his area a great success. In raising the status of the trades and technical training, the Australian technical colleges are already an unqualified success. When you go and meet the young people at these colleges, time and again they tell you that for the first time in their lives they feel motivated, they feel understood and they feel valued. We are restoring with these Australian technical colleges a great sense of pride and confidence in these young people. And it is resonating in local communities. Over the last few weeks hundreds of parents and prospective students have attended information nights at individual colleges around the country. Even parents of primary age students are approaching colleges around the country seeking to book their kids into years 11 and 12 at technical colleges some six or eight years hence.

Yet the members opposite continue to denigrate these colleges for their own selfish political purposes. To make matters worse, the opposition is promoting a totally inadequate alternative. Labor promised between $500,000 and $1.5 million to all of the 2,650 academic secondary schools around Australia to set up so-called trade centres in all of these Australian secondary colleges. This is a policy that is being ridiculed in education circles—and for good reasons. About four weeks ago I reopened a renovated toilet block in a local primary school in my electorate. It is a small primary school and the renovation of this small toilet block—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Minister for Vocational and Further Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You might laugh—they were worried about the health of their kids. This was not funded by the Labor Party; this was funded by the Australian government and the parents because the Labor government did not do anything about the health of these young kids. This renovation for a very small primary school cost $200,000. My point is that it highlights the total inadequacy of $500,000—or, for that matter, $1.5 million—to create a trade centre in every secondary school in the country. That sort of money will not touch the sides—it is a total con. It will see no more than an oven or a lathe in a classroom down the back end of every secondary school. More disturbingly, it will serve only to further perpetuate in every secondary college the second-class view of a trade career. Can’t you see it now—every Wednesday afternoon the kids who are not up with it academically will go down the back and do some cooking. That is all you will achieve with this. You will perpetuate what you have been doing for 20 years—talking down the trades. It will do nothing to raise the status of the trades.

The Leader of the Opposition, your leader, knows this and he is becoming increasingly embarrassed by it—so much so that he is starting to fudge this policy. Just last week the Leader of the Opposition said to a gathering at Geelong:

Here in Corangamite—

an electorate very well served by the local member, I might add—

there are some 13 secondary schools … That means 13 times $1.5 million to come to this community to make sure that we’ve got these trades training centres.

He went on:

Corio next door, some 20 secondary schools …

That, he said, is 20 times $1.5 million. What the Leader of the Opposition is now saying is that every school across the country will get $1.5 million. But that is not Labor’s policy. Under Labor’s policy, only one-third of all the schools get $1.5 million, one-third get $1 million and one-third get $500,000. So we saw emerge last week just a little matter of a $1.5 billion gap in Labor’s costings. I know that maths is not Labor’s strong point, but this was not a simple mathematical oversight. The Leader of the Opposition has been selling this policy all over the country since the budget. In fact, apart from IR, which has been an absolute debacle for them, this has been the only policy where they have released any detail. And he has been selling it for months. If he does not know the detail, I’ll go he. He knew what he was doing when he misrepresented his own embarrassing policy. He did not want to be ridiculed, so he told his audience what he thought they would prefer to hear. This was deception plain and simple. Mark my words: under pressure, the Leader of the Opposition reverts to type.