Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Apprenticeships have been lost at the rate of 60 a day under this government, and it's got worse since COVID-19. Australia has a crisis with apprenticeships. If we don't fix it, this crisis is going to mean that we will have a shortage of tradespeople to fix our cars, to build our houses and to maintain our factories and our buildings.

The crisis pre-dates the pandemic—the pandemic has only made it worse. Fewer apprentices means higher youth unemployment. In the Illawarra, youth unemployment sits at 17.6 per cent, which is higher than the national average, and in the three months since March this year it's doubled. The shortage of apprenticeships will hamper economic recovery and will deny young Australians the opportunity to get ahead. We already have a shortage of bricklayers, electricians, mechanics and other critical trades. Without urgent action it's going to get worse.

The Prime Minister is keen to promote himself as the tradies' mate but the fact is that the problem has got worse through ripping $3 billion from vocational education since the coalition government came to power; apprenticeship numbers have plummeted as a result. In the six years that the coalition has been in power we have lost apprentices at the rate of 60 a day, with total apprentice numbers plummeting from 403,000 apprenticeships in 2013 to 272,000 in 2019. In the Illawarra the numbers are diabolical. They have dropped by more than 50 per cent in the last six years. Six years ago, 1,473 apprentices commenced their apprenticeships; six years later only 677 started a trade.

The pandemic has made it worse. A recent report by Business NSW found that an estimated 30 to 40 per cent of apprentices will lose their employment by the end of 2020, while there will be a 36 per cent drop in apprenticeship commencements in 2020 compared to 2019. Fewer leaving; fewer coming in.

The Morrison government will point to its wage subsidy program as an indication of what they're doing to turn this situation around. We welcome it, but it won't fix years of neglect. It also won't fix the problem if one arm of government policy is working in the opposite direction to another. A prime example has been raised by a small business in my electorate. I want to talk about Curran Plumbing, a small family business located in Albion Park Rail. They've been serving the Illawarra and South Coast regions for more than 30 years. They've also been servicing the Defence Housing Authority for 25 years. Sadly, they've had to cease providing plumbing services to DHA because of the attitude DHA has taken to apprentices.

I've read the supply contract. On the face of it, it seems pretty benign, but there's a provision in there which enables DHA management to pick or choose which employees come on site. I'm informed by Curran management that DHA management will tell them over the phone, 'You cannot charge for apprentices, there's no point bringing them on site.' I've written to the government regarding this issue. Quite simply, we need to overhaul these contracts to ensure that clauses like this and practices like this do not prevent businesses from doing the right thing by employing and retaining apprentices. We need to do this, but we need to do much, much more.

The government should maintain the wage support measures and should also ensure that these measures aren't in conflict with other practices. They could go further. At the last election, Labor proposed that a condition of all large infrastructure projects should be the employment of apprentices. We're told the government is about to embark on millions and millions of dollars worth of infrastructure projects. Employing apprentices should be a condition of winning those contracts. But we need to go further than that. This should be picked up across a range of government infrastructure and other service provision arrangements. Wage subsidies are important, but ensuring one arm of government policy isn't in conflict with another arm of government policy is absolutely crucial.

I'm certain the example I've given tonight concerning Curran Plumbing from my electorate and the Defence Housing Authority is not an isolated example. With the best will in the world, we in this place can send a message to the departments which administer our legislation to ensure that we get it right.