Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment Participation, Training and Sport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will not detain the House long in speaking to the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Australian Apprentices) Bill 2009. This bill seeks to exempt incentives paid to apprentices from treatment as assessable income for taxation, social security and veterans affairs purposes. These amendments will ensure that apprentices retain the entire amount of the financial incentives paid to them. This will bring these new payments into line with the tax treatment afforded to previous incentives. It is a sensible measure that the opposition support.

The first of these payments is the Skills for Sustainability for Australian Apprentices. This is a pilot program aimed at encouraging apprentices to undertake sustainability related training, by granting a payment of $1,000 on completion of a required level of training. Discussions about sustainability related training have been around in this space for some time. We welcome this pilot program and we will be interested to see how it develops.

The second payment is a rebadged payment called the Tools for Your Trade incentive. In fact, it is not even rebadged, because the old incentive was also called Tools for Your Trade. This measure will combine three existing incentives into one. Whilst the opposition will be supporting the bill, we do have a couple of issues here. First of all, the new incentive is not set to be payable until 1 January 2010, and there is an issue for apprentices and trainees who commence between 12 May 2009—that is, budget day—and 1 January 2010. There is a real question as to whether those people will be eligible for the Tools for Your Trade incentive or whether they will fall through the gap in the merging of these three programs. So we do have an issue in that, in moving from the old Tools for Your Trade to a newer, simplified incentive, a cohort of apprentices will miss out.

The second issue is that a detailed examination of the budget papers reveals a pea and thimble trick in the incentives being paid to apprentices. Incredibly, at a time when the Australian economy needs to support employers, apprentices and people staying in their apprenticeships, the Rudd government is taking a net $197 million out of the pockets of apprentices. This is classic sleight of hand: a number of things are going. The biggest one is the apprenticeship training fee voucher. Labor had a policy to fund $800 for out-of-pocket payments, which they announced in December 2006. They have not stuck by that, and in fact they have abolished the apprenticeship training fee voucher, which was introduced in the 2007 budget. In their 2007 election policy document Skilling Australia for the future the Labor Party promised that all subsidies and payments to employers and apprentices would be retained. When you look at the fine print in the budget, you can see that this is not extra money for apprentices. In the middle of what is leading to $188 billion in net debt and $315 billion in gross debt you can see that they have taken $197 million out of the pockets of apprentices.

When we have a look at the latest figures from the NCVER on apprenticeships and trainees—and bear in mind that these figures are six months behind—we see that between the March 2008 quarter and the December 2008 quarter apprenticeship commencements in traditional trades fell by 10 per cent. That is really before a lot of the impact came from the slowdown in the economy. As we have heard, at the same time that we are seeing commencements falling the Rudd Labor government has abolished the apprenticeship training fee vouchers, which provided up to $1,000 to apprentices to help pay for their training. As I said, apprentices who commence after 12 May 2009 will not have access to the Tools for Your Trade funding because this has been put on hold until 1 January 2010.

The opposition have been vocal in their support for small business and apprentices during this economic downturn. As one example of this, during the leader of the opposition’s budget reply, we put up a proposal to bring forward the incentives for employers for traditional trades into the first two years of the apprenticeship. As the OECD noted in its review of vocational education and training in Australia and policy relating to it, most of the incentives for employers are actually back-ended towards the end of an apprenticeship. We believe that it makes sense to bring them forward to a time in those first couple of years when the apprentice is not as productive and when the cost of hiring them is something that all businesses will take into account. Bringing forward those incentives for employers will also help to boost cash flows at a time when employers need this assistance most. The bill is a modest proposal designed to help employers retain their apprentices and take on new apprentices, especially apprentices whose employment is in jeopardy. It provides a very good example of how a modest, targeted proposal can be more effective than massive waves of extravagant cash splash—the $22 billion in cash splash, the $42 billion in economic stimulus and other examples.

The opposition will be supporting this legislation. We are disappointed that the Rudd government have taken $197 million from the pockets of apprentices. We are also disappointed that they were not able to time it a bit better. It seems that apprentices who commence between 12 May 2009 and 1 January 2010 will miss out on the government’s Tools for Your Trade incentive, but we do support exempting these new incentives as assessable income for taxation.

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government is unapologetic when it comes to investing in nation building and investing in education and training. An investment in nation building through what we are doing in the development of infrastructure is just as important as what we are doing not only in the development of our skills now but also in our requirements for the future. Therefore, the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Australian Apprentices) Bill 2009 takes certain very positive steps in relation to apprentices, particularly incentives for apprentices to remain in their apprenticeships through to completion with a view to plying their trade productively and comprehensively in our communities into the future.

We on this side of the House are committed to supporting jobs. No-one could challenge us on that, despite the fact that people on the other side of the House want to make mild protestations when it comes to our spending on targeting jobs. But, when it came down to it, I also saw the rush of people from the other side who wanted to get their faces on the camera in association with our investment in schools or what we are doing with social housing. The Minister for Housing, Ms Plibersek, who is at the table at the moment, accompanied me in my own electorate, where we are doing significant things with housing. As a matter of fact, in my electorate, which has a very high proportion of social housing, over $16 million has been allocated not to the construction of new premises but to the refurbishment of existing stock.

One of the really decent things occurring out there at this stage is the partnerships that are emerging. In a recent program targeted at Macquarie Fields, one of the contractors that won social housing contracts is involved in a partnership to train people. Around $154,000 is going to go towards helping kids from challenged backgrounds to become involved with working in the construction industry and to ascertain whether they want to stay there, with a view to leading them into trade apprenticeships in the building and construction area. That is a wonderful thing to do. It is targeted at a group that may be at risk of falling through the cracks. This is something that this government is doing. Whilst we are investing in creating jobs, we are not taking our eye off the ball when it comes to looking into the future and looking at the skills that we can develop in all these kids into the future. That is why this bill is important. As I said at the outset, this is about retaining young people primarily when they embark on an apprenticeship. Far too often, unfortunately, people start these things and then let them go. There are many reasons for that, I guess, but one of the things that this bill addresses is to put the incentive in there for targeted young people to complete their training and to fulfil the terms of their apprenticeships.

This government is investing in a range of things. We are certainly investing heavily in roads in my electorate. I know that others are heavily committed to ports and rail, but what we are doing through the school modernisation project, what we are doing in our local hospital and what we are doing in social housing are very major investments. In undertaking these investments, we are also investing in the skills development of our people. From the opposition’s perspective, after their 12 years in government it all got a bit hard to some extent for them. Mr Deputy Speaker, you might recall that when the Howard government came to power they took money out of the education system. We found ourselves, after having about a billion dollars stripped out of education and while it was raining bars of gold, as the saying goes, in a position where we did not have the tradespeople to work in our mines, to move our coal and to export our iron ore.

As a matter of fact, one of my young sons found himself working for a period of time in Blackwater and then in Port Hedland—making significant amounts of money I might add, in the process. But one of the problems there was that people were required to come in on short-term overseas visas to provide the skills necessary for the productivity of the industries. That is an indictment of the planning that took place. It is an indictment of those responsible, who allowed this to occur by not overseeing the training of our young people to ensure that we had an adequate supply of apprentices moving through the system and therefore we had the tradespeople with the necessary skills necessary for the productivity those industries which contribute to the growth of this country.

To that end, the Deputy Prime Minister has only recently indicated that in terms of the tendering processes for the federal government and its infrastructure projects, preference is being given to businesses that can demonstrate a commitment to training and employment of apprentices and trainees. As I indicated a little while earlier in terms of the social housing, that is precisely what the principal contractor is doing for those projects in my electorate of Werriwa, particularly in areas of Claymore, Minto and Macquarie Fields. Young people are being trained in those areas.

As a matter of fact, it was very heartening the other day for me to be with the head of the South West Sydney Institute of TAFE, Mr Barry Peddle, who came to see me about the $10 million that the federal government has now allocated for a new building skills centre in Ingleburn. This new centre will be used for training young people in building and construction. Part of the reason for my electorate being the recipient of that funding—hopefully it had something to do with some fruitful lobbying—was that where I live is the growth centre for Sydney. The south-west is where the next wave of development will occur.

One of the things that follow from that will be a boom in housing and construction to facilitate the development. At the moment we do not have the number of tradespeople necessary to facilitate that. That is what this investment of $10 million is designed to do. It is to help provide those apprentices in the industries necessary to accommodate the south-west growth centre of Sydney. That is something that we, in my neck of the woods, have a vested interest in. It will certainly give young people the opportunity to pursue their desires, talents and skills in that direction.

To some extent I will continue my speech with my personal involvement in apprenticeships. Whilst my daughter went on to university and became a high school teacher, both my sons decided that university was not for them. One of the boys became a builder-carpenter and the other boy—after an apprenticeship through the National Electrical Contractors Association, a group training body—became an electrician. That has opened up a whole range of opportunities for them over the years. To some extent one of the boys has moved in and out of his calling, but because he successfully completed an apprenticeship he always had something to fall back on. As the boys describe it, they go ‘back on tools’. That is pretty helpful.

My other son, the electrician, has been around. He is the fella who has been to Port Hedland and Blackwater and worked in the mines and done all those things. He has come back and, because of the stimulus package, he is now doing work locally for the first time ever, as he has put it to me. He is working locally refurbishing Housing NSW stock in our local area. He set up his own little private company and he is out there subbing and doing all those sorts of things. So, good luck to them!

But it is not just my boys—I am just talking about my direct experience—I know their friends are out there doing similar things. As a matter of fact, about nine weeks ago I held a forum in my electorate. I invited all the businesses, through the chambers of commerce et cetera to find those who had an interest in picking up work that could possibly flow from the stimulus package targeted at education—the schools projects—and social housing. In my electorate, which is in outer-metropolitan Sydney, I can report to you that we had 220 people turn up from local businesses, wanting to know how they could express their interest in being involved in these matters. One of the key things I discovered when listening to a number of the people there was that they wanted some indication of how the tendering process would operate. They wanted to know what skills they would need. A few of them wanted to know how many apprentices they would need to put on. Another one wanted to know where the apprentices would undertake that training, because they wanted the apprentices working at the moment. They were pretty heartened to hear about the establishment of the new TAFE facility in Ingleburn. It will target, ostensibly, the building and construction trades. That is certainly going to help the numbers of young people coming into this industry. It was important for those people who attended my forum to learn, with some surety, about the numbers of jobs that are likely to be created.

I know that an electorate office out there should not become an employment facility but my office has been inundated with people ringing up and wanting to know how to get their names on the list and how to express an interest in jobs. We refer them to Housing NSW and to the New South Wales Department of Education and Training. There is now an endless stream of people who are trying to get involved—from established companies through to people such as my young fella who wants to set up his own business up so that he can participate in the jobs created by this round of stimulus package activity. And that sort of thing is occurring, I would say, in every electorate.

Another of our very successful businesses in Ingleburn is Broens engineering. I knew Carlos Broens when he started this company as a toolmaker. He and his brother were the whole business. It now employs around 300 people. In outer metropolitan Sydney, that is a large employer. Last year, he took on 34 apprentices. He actually has a TAFE facility on his site now so that young apprentices can be trained with the equipment the business uses. He has been preselected, I understand, for contracts for Boeing, and he is doing work for BMW, GMH and Mercedes. This is a success story of our area. From the back blocks of Sydney, he is now exporting to world markets. His site certainly has significant engineering credibility.

What Carlos always maintains, and what distinguishes his approach, is his commitment to training. He spearheaded Austool, a body which attracted some government funds, with a view to targeting skills development in the toolmaking sector. Unfortunately, that scheme did not go all that well, and he became discouraged with the process. That was when he started TAFE visiting his premises—they are now working from his premises. He has been instrumental in TAFE reinjecting itself in Ingleburn—which is a growing industrial estate of the south-west of Sydney—with a view to targeting young apprentices there and providing opportunities for employers. Young people are able to be trained locally as opposed to having to be carted off to the various TAFE colleges depending on their specialties. We are now seeing opportunities for companies to work in conjunction, hand in hand, with some of these skills providers. The use that is now being made of TAFE, and TAFE facilities working in partnership with the individual to deliver these trade developments, is now paying significant dividends throughout the industrial areas of my electorate.

This bill will do a number of things which will support young people in their trades. It will certainly support retention of apprentices. The bill will amend the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997, the Social Security Act 1991 and the Veterans’ Entitlements Act 1986 to exempt the value of payments made under the Skills for Sustainability for Australian Apprentices and Tools For Your Trade, under the Australian Apprenticeships Incentives Program, from treatment as assessable income for income tax purposes and from the income test for benefits under social security and veterans’ affairs legislation.

Skills for Sustainability for Australian Apprentices is a pilot program within the Skills for the Carbon Challenge initiative. This initiative came out of the 2020 Summit and aims to accelerate the response to climate change by industry and the tertiary education sector. To encourage apprenticeships to undertake sustainability related training, the payment of $1,000 will be provided to eligible apprentices who have successfully completed the required level of training to provide them with skills in sustainability and environmentally sustainable work practices.

The enhanced Tools For Your Trade payment combines and extends three existing support initiatives—the Tools For Your Trade voucher, the apprenticeship wage top-up and the Commonwealth trade learning scholarship—in the one new Tools For Your Trade payment under the Australian Apprenticeships Incentives Program. The new payment comprises five separate cash payments totalling $3,800 paid over the life of the apprenticeship to apprentices in selected trade occupations, agricultural occupations and, if in rural and regional locations, horticultural occupations.

The new arrangements, importantly, reduce the administrative burden for employers of apprentices, broaden eligibility criteria, benefiting more apprentices, and ensure that apprentices in skills shortage trades are eligible for the same level of government support regardless of age and employer size. The amendments in the bill will ensure that eligible apprentices receive the full benefit of the payments made under the two new programs and are consistent with the tax treatment of previous programs that have paid personal benefits to apprentices.

I welcome these measures as they apply through my electorate. I will always play a role in advocating proper and sustainable trade based training. It is something that we as a nation have prided ourselves on in the past and it is something that over the past 10 or 12 years we have allowed to escape. If we are serious about building our economy for the future, this is something we need to keep our eye on. I welcome this. I think it is good for young people. It is a great measure to encourage the retention of apprentices and it is very good for businesses such as Broens engineering.

This is what we can do as a nation. It is important that we give suitable attention to trade based training and trade development. It worked very effectively for my young fellas. As I said, they have all been able to go on and do a range of different jobs, but at some stage when it suits them they return the tools. These are skills that they will maintain for life. Their skills passport will enable them to participate in building our economy in the future.

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the face of it, the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Australian Apprentices) Bill 2009 is of a fairly minor nature but is of an administrative type and consequently brings together certain payments. As frequently occurs over time, governments make a variety of initiatives and it becomes obvious that they should be amalgamated into a single grant or whatever. It also, I am pleased to say, makes sure that such grants as are given in these circumstances are not subject to the income tax that would otherwise apply to the income of young people, apprentices and others. I should not use the words ‘young people’. An apprenticeship now is not only a project for the young; it is a project for mature persons who seek to improve themselves from having basic employment skills in areas of declining employment. I think all congratulations are due to those who do make that choice, because it is quite difficult.

Nevertheless, whilst it is just a trial program, the Skills for Sustainability for Australian Apprentices is of great interest to me. I think it is a great idea. I think it is a pity that, in the second reading speech, the minister did not bother to tell us where these sorts of opportunities might exist in the future. What you have to be to participate in the government’s program of carbon pollution reduction is of course a screen jockey. You have to be an employee of a hedge fund or a bank, or someone else who is going to try and re-establish your respectability, having destroyed the world economy on your last attempt. And you are going to be given the opportunity to gamble on certificates to pollute. I thought that was a pretty bad place to start in addressing a problem that appears to be universal, throughout the globe, where Australia could be a contributor in providing the world with the technology that might work. The technology that the world has provided to date will not work in any significant fashion, be it wind generation, solar power or any of those things, simply because they lack the substance or, if you like, the capacity to work.

But there are opportunities within the present technology, and one might wonder if the minister, in coming up with this particular program, might have thought it a good idea to have a special class in the management of high-voltage DC transmission systems. HVDC, as we know it, is most notable, but not recognised by many, as the means of transmitting electricity across Bass Strait. It had to be chosen on that occasion simply because you could not have a series of posts along the way with a transformer, which is a necessary energy-consuming component of high-voltage AC transmission, on which the Australian system relies with only a couple of exceptions. And the great advantage of high-voltage DC transmission is that you can shift electrical energy over huge distances.

The Chinese are presently building a 2,000-kilometre transmission line—being constructed, I might add, by people with whom I have significant contact in this arena because I believe I have to learn, as other parliamentarians in this place do not. The fact is that ABB, as it is now known—it was once Asea Brown Boveri—is building that line for the Chinese. The Europeans are flat out utilising this technology because it saves emissions just by being in existence. It does not require a great deal of inventiveness. It does not require hundreds of billions of dollars, as might be required in proving up carbon capture and sequestration, which I have never seen as a logical response to the problem because it just says, ‘We’ll make the problem go away’.

In the utilisation of high-voltage DC transmission, however, you reduce the amount of energy lost, particularly over long distances. And it can compete with gas pipelines. Gas pipelines are very energy inefficient. The one that delivers gas from the Pilbara to the City of Perth uses in its compressors the power equivalent to one of the coal-fired power stations that service the state—250 megawatts. Yet, if the electricity that is generated from that pipeline when it gets to Perth was in fact generated at the well-head end—on the beach, if you like, in the case of offshore gas reserves—and sent down on HVDC, you would lose significantly less energy and you would have consequent improvement in emissions.

I wonder how many apprentices are doing their time in that technology. It is a pity that there was not some sort of list in the explanatory memorandum or somewhere else which tells us where this smart alec idea is going to work. There are huge opportunities in the reform of energy generation—and the evidence is all there. It is not new technology; we do not have to invent it, although we could leverage off, from a technological basis, some of the generating opportunities that would follow an adequate HVDC system, which in my mind ought be now under construction as the appropriate stimulus package instead of wasting money as is being done at the moment on school facilities that are unnecessary in many cases, in building passenger railways that will lose money forever and—I will get the minister at the table, the Minister for Housing, to put her head up when I say this—in public housing that will cost money for ever and ever thereafter. I noted the other day that the Western Australian parliament has had to budget $8 million simply to fix up the houses that have been trashed under their responsibility at the moment.

But the reality is that, if apprentices are going to be given $1,000, as this act provides, for the purpose of gaining skills in sustainability, I think it would be a good idea if the parliament gave it some privileges. But, as I said, this government has stepped out to build public housing, passenger railways and of course spread a mere $24 billion in cash around, but if it had chosen to invest that sort of money in sustainable energy initiatives that are available and would easily fit within those costs, they would not have this procession of industry groups coming along and saying, ‘Please don’t drive us out of the country with an emissions trading scheme,’ which at the end will give no guarantee of reducing emissions. It is in fact a process of selling certificates to pollute. The question as to how much your business or your consumers can bear of that cost will decide what reductions might follow.

We are talking about a good idea here, which is to get apprentices dealing in new technology. That might be hydrogen fuel cell technology, which would be a great opportunity for young people. It is a technology that will happen, as will the plug-in electric car and the technology associated with lithium ion batteries and all other things that will be associated with that process. The reality is that what the government is doing, notwithstanding the offering of the minister for resources today—I had to watch him on television because you are not allowed to make jokes in this place any more!—when he talked about this massive investment in sustainability, is peanuts. The government cannot make a major contribution of less than $10 billion. An investment of that amount would be a starting point and it could deliver a 10 or 15 per cent long-term, permanent reduction in emissions without sending aluminium smelters et cetera to the wall. Other countries, and particularly China, are taking this option. Their centralised bureaucratic structure will not lead to the sort of market solution that the Rudd government believes will drive Australian business to save the world. They are investing in renewables or non-emitting technology such as nuclear power. They have 25 such projects on the drawing board or under construction as we speak. Even the Iranians, for whatever reason, are building a nuclear power station, presumably so that they can sell more oil!

Australia, with its tidal energy resource, has one of the biggest renewable energy resources in the world, according to the World Energy Council. A body associated with Oxford University can come out here and tell us what we have on a world table and you never hear a bleep from this government, which says that it wants to go to Copenhagen and lead the world in a response to the issues of carbon emissions and climate change.

We have two choices as a nation. I can tell you that we will be giving apprentices $1,000 to get sustainability skills, but if in fact the whole system is going to be driven by screen jockeys—apparently they will all live in Sydney, because New South Wales government ministers are salivating over the profits that will accrue to Sydney arising from an emissions trading scheme. If someone takes a profit out of the trading concept, that is an extra cost that somebody else has to pay. Yet we are talking here today of what apprentices might do. We will not have electric cars or hydrogen fuel cell cars, which in fact still require an electricity input to electrolyse the water to produce hydrogen, unless we produce more electricity. So apprentices need to learn how better to produce renewable electricity at the gigawatt level, as could occur in the Kimberleys. The technology associated with the conversions for high-voltage DC transmission—and these things only cost $250 million a pop—is the sort of opportunity that the minister should have talked about in his second reading speech. The speech should have referred to directing young people to these opportunities and giving them the opportunity to earn $1,000 or more.

But of course those projects are not on the drawing board. There is no opportunity for young apprentices to learn about that because this government does not believe in it. The government’s ETS provides more opportunities for repairers of desktop computers, because that is what the scheme is all about. It is not about creating opportunities in technology. And the lousy few hundred million dollars that the minister boasted about today will simply not deliver anything like that needed from government. If the money that was put into public housing was put into an initiative like that a lot of people would not need public housing because their jobs would not be at risk, as is patently obvious they will be when you start to jack up the competitive costs of local industries such as iron, steel and aluminium, where the workforce is often filled with loyal Labor votes—but that does not seem to worry this government. Maybe the intelligentsia will re-elect them.

Concerning sustainability for apprentices learning, while there are no projects and while projects are not necessarily going to come from industry because they have been taxed to a point where they have no money left—and that is the theory behind ETS; you make things so costly that people will make different expenditure choices. They will have no money and, as things stand, they will in fact be competing with the government to borrow money. We touched on this in question time today but I did not think the Treasurer had much of an idea of what he was talking about and nor did the Prime Minister when quoting the interest rate spreads—you cannot borrow the money in Australia, so what is the point. Anyway, coming back to the issue, the Skills for Sustainability Australian apprentices grant is a sensible initiative. Outside some technical adjustments, the Skills for Sustainability Australian apprentices grant is the thing that should be pointing the way for young people in terms of opportunity but it is lacking in that it does not tell the kids what it happens to be.

As I said, at the moment the only proposition before this parliament is a screen jockey’s opportunity because that is what an ETS is. An ETS is a process of licensing people to pollute and trying to drive them into some sort of reduced emissions position by making it too expensive to stay where they are. But it ignores the option of leaving Australia completely or passing the cost on downstream, as can occur in electricity generation where there is a captive consumer market. So what are the kids going to learn there? You should say to them, ‘Here are the opportunities.’ One of the reasons for the lack of opportunities is that the government are not investing in saws or planing units or anything like that. Instead, they have taken all the basic investments of sustainability—none of them have a technological peak—when that same money could have been put into achieving up to a 40 per cent reduction in emissions trading for Australia and would have led the way for apprentices to have genuine sustainability skills.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I commend the former speaker for his contribution to the debate. I too rise in support of the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Australian Apprentices) Bill 2009. This bill is about a very minor amendment to various acts but it will make a huge difference for thousands of apprentices throughout the country. Being an apprentice is not something that I have experienced in my varied careers. But I remember that, when I was in year 7, I basically decided that I wanted to become an apprentice butcher and leave school. That was not so much about a love of the butchering industry but more because the nun who taught me at the time terrified me. I thought that the best option was to join my family’s profession, which is the meat trade. My grandfather was a butcher and so were my father, my uncle and two of my brothers, so I thought that that was the way to go. As it turned out, I did not go that way. I know that there are a couple of meatworkers in the parliament and they make a contribution. I did not go down the route of an apprenticeship and instead ended up being a teacher and the like.

Apprentices are a very important section of the community and one that we definitely need to look after as much as possible. The legislation before the House amends the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997, the Social Security Act 1991 and the Veterans’ Entitlements Act 1986 to ensure that the Skills for Sustainability and Tools for Your Trade payments made to apprentices are not assessable income for tax purposes. This is quite significant legislation for apprentices. It is quite significant in the current economic climate that it got past Treasurer Swan as well, I guess. But he understands the benefits of looking after these skills and making sure that they are nurtured and developed, especially in tough economic times. These legislative changes will ensure that the apprentices and the community get the full benefit of these two programs by them not being assessable income for tax purposes.

There are about 400,000 apprentices in training around the country. I will declare a possible conflict of interest here. My nephew, Joel Perrett, is an apprentice and possibly might benefit from this enhancement. I will not declare every single member of my family who has been an apprentice in the past, but for the sake of clarity and in order to be honest and respectable I will declare that possible conflict of interest—and so that Joel has the thrill of being named in parliament. He works in the building industry, with cranes in particular. One of my other brothers works in the crane industry. Obviously, they are particularly sensitive to the swings and roundabouts of the economic climate. They are based down on the Gold Coast and they are probably doing work in the electorate of the good member for Moncrieff, where a lot of high-rise construction is taking place. So I declare that possible conflict of interest.

These apprentices, these men and women—and I was going to say young men and women, but I know that that is not necessarily the case anymore; people are going back as mature age apprentices nowadays—are learning the skills and know-how through on-the-job experience to ensure that we have the skills that we need to carry Australia forward into the future. It is particularly important that we do this when times are tough so that we are ready to come out of the trough. We must be ready for that. People batten down the hatches and markets tighten up when economic circumstances deteriorate, so it is important that the government does what it can to make sure that people are primed, ready and trained—retrained if necessary—so as to go into overdrive when the market turns around. I am sure that all those in the House would take heart from the economic outlook figures that we have seen over the last few weeks. There would not be anyone partaking of dole queue schadenfreude and hoping for things to go bad. Instead, I am sure that we all want the best for Australia.

The Skills for Sustainability program for Australian apprentices is a great initiative to encourage apprentices to complete the sustainability related training. They receive $1,000 once they have successfully completed the required level of training. Obviously, $1,000 is not as much today as it was when I was contemplating going into the butchering trade in 1977, but $1,000 is still quite significant and a great incentive.

Australian workplaces are crying out for people with training in environmentally sustainable work practices, and the Skills for Sustainability payment will provide an added incentive to apprentices who complete their training in this area. It will also give them a head start when it comes time to find a job. Those who are equipped to meet the sustainability challenges that they might face on the job will obviously be ahead of the pack. This skill will become much more of a factor for employers when they determine who will become their employees. As Australia transitions slowly but surely and inevitably to a low carbon economy—I say this irrespective of what goes on in the red chamber—consumers will increasingly want outcomes that are good for the environment. The apprentices who benefit from these programs will be well equipped and ready to deliver.

Incidentally, the idea of the Skills for Sustainability program came out of the Australia 2020 Summit convened by the Prime Minister in April 2008 and held in this building. This is further evidence that politicians do not have all the bright ideas and it also shows that this government is prepared to listen to good ideas no matter where they come from. Obviously, there are many people who feel that, if we just listen to taxi drivers, we could solve all of the world’s problems pretty quickly. But the 2020 Summit went beyond just taxi drivers; it engaged lots of different people from lots of different sections within our community and some great ideas flowed from that.

In the weeks leading up to the national 2020 Summit, I held a community forum in my electorate in conjunction with Griffith University and, in particular, the Nathan campus. More than 400 people filled the auditorium at Griffith University. We shared a few hours of robust debate and information sharing. There are certainly some very passionate people with some very firmly held beliefs. It was a fantastic experience and it was important for me as the new local member to be informed about the range of views in my community—although, there were times when I wished that the range of views had not been quite as broad as was presented. But, nevertheless, it was great for the community to be heard, and that is why I, in partnership with Griffith university, will be holding a Southside summit on 22 August this year. If the member for Moncrieff wants to put that date in his diary, he is more than welcome to attend. I would be more than happy to have him address a particular section of the community.  A range of topics will be up for discussion, and I am sure that we will hear more great ideas like the Skills for Sustainability program.

As I mentioned earlier, the other payment proposed in this legislation is Tools For Your Trade. This new payment combines and extends three programs previously offered to Australian apprentices to support them in undertaking apprenticeships in areas of national skills shortage. The Tools For Your Trade payment includes five separate cash payments, totalling $3,800 over the life of an apprenticeship. They are not insignificant amounts of cash, especially for an apprentice. This new payment will help more apprentices make life easier for employers and it will also ensure that Australian apprentices in areas of skills shortage are eligible for the same level of support. Importantly, this bill ensures that payments made to apprentices under these programs will be tax exempt. I understand this is in line with the tax treatment of other programs that have made similar payments to apprentices.

The two programs are worth about $700 million over four years. So we are not talking about just a few dollars or a token gesture; this is significant cash on the table to ensure that our apprentices, be they young, old or mature, are able to complete their training with as much support as possible from the government. I am sure that everyone can see the benefits of the programs in encouraging apprentices to undertake training in areas of workforce shortage and sustainability. Any investment that we can pump into meeting skills shortages and equipping people for the climate change jobs of the future is money well spent as far as I am concerned.

On a related note, earlier this year I was pleased to meet 10 young people working on the Green Corps project to improve water quality and protect the local flora and fauna in the Rocky Water Holes Creek area of the Oxley Creek catchment in my electorate. Unfortunately, the Rocky Water Holes Creek area floods fairly regularly, and that has a significant impact on the suburbs of Rocklea and Salisbury. It was great to go along and meet the guys who were working on the Green Corps project. They were cleaning up the river bank around the construction training centre and attempting to move rubbish from lantana. It was amazing to see the filth and rubbish that had accumulated there over the last 20, 30, 40 or 50 years. I took some photographs of these young people and have included them in a newsletter.

Gary Gray (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Western and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Gray interjecting

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can show that to people tomorrow.

Gary Gray (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Western and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would appreciate that.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Some of these young people had not necessarily been the most successful at school. A couple of them had made a decision to go into an environmental job because that is what they had always wanted to do. Some were being trained up so that they could spend a year backpacking overseas and perhaps use their green skills in other parts of the world that may be a little more embracing of legislation like the carbon pollution reduction scheme. It was a great opportunity to meet these young guys working on the Green Corps, and they seemed to be picking up a lot of skills. Obviously, things have changed a bit in terms of the knowledge that they need. They now have to know how to use personal protective equipment and different types of machines such as bush-cutters and the like, which seemed incredibly dangerous. These young people said that they would not let me touch any of the brush-cutters, which was probably a wise decision. This is a great training opportunity and experience for young job seekers, and these young people are doing a great job in helping to regenerate local native plant species through weeding, planting and water quality monitoring.

These programs that are before the House will help ease the financial burden for apprentices and encourage more into training areas of sustainability and skill shortages. Why are we doing this? We are doing this because the government understands that a carbon restrained economy is all but upon us. If you doorknock any household in my electorate of Moreton, I am sure two out of three would say they understand that something has to be done about climate change. You occasionally get the ill-informed people who think that the world’s global warming problems were changed last year when the Kyoto protocol was signed, but most understand that more has to be done. Carbon belts have to be tightened in every household. It was great to see these 15-, 16-, 17- and 18-year-old guys and girls who have done it a bit tough being given the opportunity to train and do their bit to save the planet.

That view is not necessarily shared by everyone in the House or in the Senate; there are people who still do not quite get it. I know that all the forward-thinking members of the Liberal Party would certainly be in favour of getting some legislation in as soon as possible—legislation that would be ahead of the curve, as they say, in what the world needs. However, it is not a bad thing for Australia to take a leadership position when it comes to climate change. As I indicated earlier in my speech, there will be job opportunities and opportunities to export our technologies and knowledge around the world if we can steal a march on those other countries that are still filled with sceptics. I would hate to think that in this parliament in 2009, after all the debates in the House and in the Senate about climate change, people will find out that this was the group of people that betrayed the later generations, that this was the group of people who did not read the writing writ large on the wall. Still there are sceptics. Still there are people who go overseas, talk to a couple of scientists—possibly not mainstream scientists; I do not know—and then say, ‘Oh no, I spoke to someone who had a different view; therefore, we need to revise our whole understanding.’ I am hoping that those opposite will take the opportunity to inform their caucus and that we will have some movement on this legislation so that those young people whom I met during my visits to the Green Corps can take heart from the politicians in this House. I commend the bill to the House.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to speak on the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Australian Apprentices) Bill 2009 in the House tonight. This bill will amend the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997, the Social Security Act 1991 and the Veterans’ Entitlements Act 1986 to allow Australian apprentices to receive the full value, without deduction, of payments made under Skills for Sustainability for Australian Apprentices and Tools for Your Trade within the Australian Apprenticeship Incentives Program. In addition, it will make the taxation treatment of payments under the two new programs consistent with the treatment of previous programs that deliver payments to Australian apprentices.

There is no more important role that a government can play than to ensure that Australia has appropriately trained tradespeople. How do you get appropriately trained tradespeople? People need to undertake apprenticeships. Unfortunately, under the previous government a chronic skills shortage was allowed to develop in many of the trades. Coming from the Hunter, in which my electorate of Shortland is situated, it was very apparent that employers were unable to obtain suitably qualified tradespeople. Unfortunately for Australia, the Howard government chose to do absolutely nothing. They allowed this chronic skills shortage to get worse and worse. That meant that we had fewer and fewer qualified tradespeople. The Rudd government’s approach is totally different to the Howard government’s approach. We know that Australia is part of a global market. We are part of the global economy. For Australia to benefit from being part of that global market and global economy, we must have appropriately trained tradespeople, tradespeople who have completed apprenticeships and tradespeople who are highly skilled. The only way we will get these tradespeople is for them to undertake apprenticeships. The financial impact of the Skills for Sustainability for Australian Apprentices is estimated to cost about $20 million over four years. The other program, Tools for Your Trade within the broader Australian Apprenticeship Incentives Program, is estimated to cost about $670.1 million over four years. Every cent of that is worthwhile spending, because it will encourage more young people to undertake apprenticeships.

I know that when the previous government was in power there was a lot of rhetoric about supporting apprentices, about training apprentices, about how undertaking an occupation as a tradesperson was a noble aspiration. We know that and we are making it possible by putting in place programs like these two that are included in this legislation. As I have already indicated, the bill exempts the value of payments made under Skills for Sustainability for Australian Apprentices and Tools for Your Trade from treatment as assessable income for income tax purposes and from the income tax test for benefits under social security and veterans affairs legislation. This is a major incentive for young people to undertake training as apprentices. The amendments ensure that Australian apprentices receive the full benefit of the payments made under the two new programs. They are consistent with the taxation treatment of previous programs that have paid personal benefits to Australian apprentices.

While we are talking about apprentices and apprenticeship programs, I would like to share with the House details of the launch of a program that took place in the Hunter last Wednesday, 10 June. It was a rather cold morning and 60 bold and brave souls turned out early for the launch of the Adopt an Apprentice program. The campaign was launched by nine group training schools working in Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, the Hunter Valley and the Central Coast. I might add that the Shortland electorate also takes in the Central Coast. The campaign is to keep apprentices working during the current downturn. It is really important to emphasise that we have had a skills shortage in the economic good times and what we need to do now is train our young people so they will be ready once the downturn is over. The group training organisations have set aside their own interests and identities as entities and set out to work together. That is a really important point. They are joining together in a campaign aimed at assisting employers and also apprentices whose training positions are under threat. I congratulate all those who are involved, especially the group training company NovaSkill, who have provided the leadership on this initiative. To anyone who may be listening in the Hunter-Central Coast area, I have considerable information on this program that can be obtained from my electorate office.

The Adopt an Apprentice program will assist apprentices to continue their trade training and the completion of their trade qualification at a time when their jobs under threat. Employers will have maintained a pool of skilled labour to meet future demands as the economy recovers. Potential employers should go to the website and have a look at the availability of apprentices and then register their interest with the responsible group training program. The Adopt an Apprentice campaign is a call to arms, which is the way the group apprenticeship organisations have put it. It is a call to arms, and employers are working together to keep young apprentices in work in these uncertain times. The campaign highlights that young apprentices, through no fault of their own, are affected and still need to complete their training. Initiatives like this really show what can be done. If people are interested in checking it out, the website for the Adopt an Apprentice program is www.apprenticeships.det.nsw.ed.au. They can obtain the information that they need from that website.

The reason I have brought this program to the attention of the House is that it recognises how important tradespeople are to Australia. This program recognises that governments should do everything in their power to help young people complete their apprenticeships. Skills for Sustainability for Australian Apprentices is one such program. It is a pilot program within the Skills for the Carbon Challenge initiative. This initiative is an outcome of Australia’s 2020 Summit which aims to accelerate industries’ and tertiary education’s response to climate change. It is an innovative program aimed at training apprentices and giving them the kinds of skills that they will need for the future. To encourage Australian apprentices to undertake sustainability related training, the payment of $1,000 will be provided to eligible Australian apprentices who have successfully completed the required level of training which teaches skills as to sustainable and environmentally sustainable work practices, all very important at this time. It was only last week that we debated the CPRS legislation in this parliament and now we are encouraging young people to obtain trade qualifications in environmental areas, which is very important.

There is also the Tools for Your Trade payment initiative within the broader Australian Apprenticeships Incentives Program. That combines and extends three administratively complex programs previously available to Australian apprentices. So it is good for employers and it is good for apprentices. The new payment initiative comprises five separate cash payments totalling $3,800, paid over the life of the Australian apprenticeship. The new arrangement reduces the administrative burden on employers of Australian apprentices, broadening eligibility criteria. By doing that it is benefiting more Australian apprentices and it is also, as I have mentioned, benefiting employers. It will ensure that Australian apprentices in areas of skill shortages become trained. These apprentices are eligible for the same level of government support regardless of their age and of their employer’s size. These two new programs represent significant measures and encourage Australian apprentices to develop skills in sustainability in order to participate in the workforce.

This is important legislation. The issue of training apprentices was brought up at the 2020 Summit. Payments under Skills for Sustainability for Australian Apprentices is a very important measure, as are all the measures in this legislation. The legislation that we have before us today should be supported by all in the House. By supporting this legislation we are ensuring that we have suitably trained tradespeople for the future.

Debate interrupted.