Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

You were the ones who held up the passage of the original bill. This bill is actually about bringing forward money—$343-odd million of training money—because the program has been such a success. With the way you have come in here today, you would think that you were doing the kids of Australia a favour by supporting this. The fact is that these Australian technical colleges—which are classic partnerships between young people, schools, industry and general business—have been and will be an outstanding success. The fact is that we are here today because the government and the minister have moved rock after rock, against the desires of the Australian Labor Party, to make sure that we get these ATCs up and running. That is a measure of this government’s commitment and it is a measure of the constant opposition of the Australian Labor Party to any attempt by this government at nation building through skills training. This has been opposed and delayed by the Australian Labor Party.

There were comments this morning about what needs to be done with the ATCs. The bottom line is that the government has identified a clear need to increase participation in traditional skills in this country. We have been forced again to take up the slack of state Labor governments, who have wiped their hands of any responsibility for this nation’s young people—totally wiped their hands of it. And then at the 11th hour, of course, Mr Bracks recently announced some convoluted process, only in response to this government’s initiatives.

Twenty-two of the 25 colleges have been announced. The $343 million of funding remains unchanged, appropriated until 2009. Five of those colleges will be operational this year, at least 20 colleges are expected to be operational in 2007 and, when fully operational, the 25 ATCs will have at least 7½ thousand students each year. That is a quite remarkable achievement. The fact that we are here today to bring forward funding is again a remarkable achievement, and not just of this government. The people who I want to pay credit to are the people in education, industry and business—community leaders who have worked hard to make sure that these colleges get up and running.

In my patron seat of Bendigo, the Bendigo ATC, which I will talk about further in due course, has been driven by a consortium of community leaders, across all industries and all sectors, who want to make this work. I am afraid that I really am staggered by the fact that the Australian Labor Party does not want to see this work. The Bendigo operation, which will be operational next year, was driven by Mr Don Erskine, who is well known to many in this chamber. He has a remarkable group of people who have worked very hard to make sure that the ATC will be up and running next year.

Mr Acting Deputy President, as you will be acutely aware, the issue of trade skills in regional areas, such as Bendigo, Ballarat and Geelong in my home state, is absolutely fundamental to the survival of those regions. Those from country areas will know full well that we cannot tell our young people to stay, live, work and raise their families in Bendigo. As parents and communities we cannot tell them that, but what we can do is give them the opportunity to remain in the regions in which they were raised. The best way of giving them a good reason to stay is to give them employment opportunities. The ATCs are pivotal in metropolitan areas, but they are both pivotal and fundamental to the survival of regional centres. That is why they have been taken up with such gusto by people across broad political spectrums and with broad community interests.

As I have said before, educators, people from industry and people from small business know full well that the survival of those regional centres can be guaranteed only if we are able to provide our young people with skills and the opportunity to work and live in their own areas, and with the ability for us to attract decentralised industry. Companies will only come to the Bendigos, the Ballarats and the Geelongs of this world if there is a skills base. They look at the skills base and make a decision about whether the local community can provide them with long-term, skilled employees that will sustain that business. The ATC in Bendigo will enable the community, whether it is the council or other organisations that are driving that great city forward, to sell to other industries the skills that we have, to attract them to Bendigo.

I think it is quite extraordinary that we have heard the Leader of the Opposition constantly talking in platitudes about skills training issues. One of his claims recently was that, with the Howard government, there had been 10 years of chronic skills shortage. It is interesting: when Mr Beazley was the minister there were 122,000 young people in apprenticeships or traineeships; there are now nearly 400,000 young Australians being given that opportunity for their future. Am I taking great credit on behalf of the government for that? Yes, I am, but what I am also saying is that good government provides good opportunities, and it is a bit rich for Mr Beazley, who did not provide those opportunities, to be attacking a government for doing what a government should be doing. Indeed, $10.8 billion over the next four years is going into vocational training and education—again, good government doing what good governments should be doing.

There was an interesting comment, again by Mr Beazley, about young Australians being turned away from TAFE. The federal government does not run or own any TAFEs, as you would be aware, Mr Acting Deputy President—not one of them. But his commentary was along the lines that the government has imported 270,000 extra skilled migrants. That is actually a blatant untruth, because the figures that Mr Beazley is talking about are the dependants of those primary skilled immigrants—they are dependants. Mr Beazley, to try and make a cheap political point, has rolled them all in together, but about 120,000 or 130,000-odd are actually skilled migrants and the rest are dependants. Mr Beazley’s shameful comment that 300,000 young Australians have been turned away from TAFE, at the same time that the government has imported 270,000 extra skilled migrants, is purely designed for domestic purposes: to say to the Australian community that the government has put skilled migrants ahead of its responsibility to train young Australians—a blatant lie, because they are not skilled migrants; they are dependants—