David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week I had the great privilege of accompanying the Deputy Prime Minister on a visit to one of the schools in my electorate, Cambridge Park High School, to announce more than $13 million in funding for two trades training centres in my local community. The Penrith Cluster Trades Training Centre will receive more than $7.2 million and involves the construction of new state-of-the-art metalwork and engineering facilities and will cater for students from Kingswood, Cambridge Park, Glenmore Park, Cranebrook, Nepean, Jamison and Blaxland high schools. The McCarthy Catholic College Trades Training Centre, a $6 million joint proposal with Caroline Chisholm, Xavier College and St Columbas, will use the funding to upgrade and construct trades training facilities and offer students up to certificate III training in areas like automotive, mechanical and the electrocommunications industries.

These two trades training centres are the result of the hard work and inspired thinking of a number of individuals and I would like to recognise their work. Soon after the 2007 federal election I commenced discussions with a group of local industry leaders—including Paul Brennan of ASP Plastics, Leigh Hartog of JK William, Lea Hicks of Hix Electrical and Professor Steven Riley of the University of Western Sydney, as well as Alan Stoneham and Bijai Kumar of the Penrith City Council—to determine how best to build upon their earlier work to move beyond the Australian technical college concept. I worked towards delivering a vocational education outcome for the local community under the Trades Training Centres in Schools Program. Their extensive work, expertise and experience became an important basis for the projects that were eventually funded.

From these early discussions in April 2008, I then convened a trades training centres and schools seminar following the inviting of applications for the first round of funding for the program to bring together local secondary school principals, industry representatives, registered training organisations, TAFE and local government to encourage schools to work together so that the trades training centre funds could be delivered in clusters with a regional focus for the delivery of vocational education in Penrith. This seminar, along with the local skills forum held by the Penrith Valley Economic Development Corporation in May 2008, helped to drive interest in the Trades Training Centres in Schools Program and engaged industry, schools and the vocational training sector in a dialogue about the best ways to give our young people the opportunity to learn a trade. The result was two outstanding applications from our government and Catholic schools, both of which were successful in the second phase of the first round of funding. I would like to acknowledge the hard work and passionate interest of people like Daryl Jacobs, Greg Whitby, Magda Quinlan, Roger Berry, Kevin Wholohan and all of the principals involved in these projects.

Underpinning the Rudd government’s commitment to an education revolution is the notion that a trade qualification is just as important as a university degree. I am proud of the enormous combined effort that has gone into securing these two trades training centres for our local community so that this ideal can now become a reality for many young people in our community. (Time expired)