Judith Troeth (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy President. So that amazing leap in the number of apprentices, which has been buoyed by incentives provided to apprentices and their employers when they start their apprenticeship—money for tools, and mid-term and later payments to both employers and apprentices—means that we are very well attuned to the sort of training that should be provided in this country.

The Leader of the Opposition, I point out, was not the only guilty party. Recently, the Victorian Minister for Education and Training, Lynne Kosky, confessed the sins of the Victorian Labor Party, when she admitted the mistake of closing that state’s technical schools in the 1980s. I taught in a state technical school in Portland, western Victoria, where I lived—a town with a great mix of manufacturing and heavy machinery, which was to lead to the establishment of the Alcoa aluminium smelter. That town desperately needed apprentices and people to train in those skills, and the technical school provided it. The schools were merged into a secondary college. I am not saying that the secondary college did not provide them with adequate training, but there is no doubt in my mind that technical schools, particularly in a more advanced stage, such as the ones we provided in last year’s budget, make that difference and will continue to do so. Labor, state and federal governments have a track record of failure and a lack of commitment to do this.

The Prime Minister recently announced a major package of skills initiatives, worth $837 million over five years and, appropriately, it is called Skills for the Future. I will start at the chronological end of this package, and I will go into the details of some of that in a moment. It includes a major investment in improving the basic skills of Australia’s workforce. It refers to assisting adults to gain literacy and numeracy skills that are basic requirements in the workforce. New financial incentives can help more Australians take up a trade apprenticeship mid career, and apprentices in traditional trades—I am sorry that Senator Wong is not still here to hear this—will also receive support to help them gain the necessary skills to run their own businesses. Not only do graduating apprentices work for bosses but some also run their own very successful small businesses. That is a substantial new investment. Not only does it aid the apprenticeship level but it also funds more university engineering places.

Of course, we must never forget that vocational and technical education is a joint responsibility of the Commonwealth on the one hand and the states and territories on the other hand. For instance, the states and territories run TAFE colleges, about which I will have more to say later. They should also invest in workforce education and training to complement the Commonwealth’s initiatives. I was interested to see that, after our budget initiative of 25 Australian technical colleges last year, again, in a very ‘follow my leader’ type of move, the Victorian Labor government is now announcing, as part of its election policy for the forthcoming election, that it will also look at providing technical colleges. So we have incentives for a whole range of initiatives there.

Senator Wong said that we had come very late to this debate. In the 1990s, unless I am mistaken, almost as soon as we attained government, we provided many prevocational training places in the trades, through group training arrangements. I think as far back as 1998, two years after gaining government, we worked in partnership, again with group training organisations, to provide an additional 7,000 Australian skill based apprenticeships. We have worked on this all along, because we know that 70 per cent of secondary exit students do not go to university. They seek a job or a career in other areas.

I would be the first to admit that there is a skills shortage in Australia, partly due to the resources and mining boom in Western Australia, which is sucking many, many qualified tradesmen into Western Australia to work in that industry. As a consequence, the eastern states are feeling the shortage. But we have seen this coming and we are moving to address it. It is not a question of discovering you have a shortage one day and the next day being able to provide apprenticeships and trained people. This process takes time. We want apprentices and trainees to be trained properly, and that can mean anything up to four years training. We have had many goes at this and we will continue to bring forward many more initiatives.

As I said, the state and territory governments are responsible for TAFE, and the 2005-08 Commonwealth-state agreement provided a contribution of almost $5 billion in recurrent and capital funding for the vocational and technical education system. The states do not necessarily make their own arrangements or look after their own people. We as a federal government come to the party and do that, but the states and territories are responsible for all aspects of training in their jurisdictions. The decisions on what courses are offered and the level of fees charged are made by the relevant authorities in each state and territory. There is a great deal more to be said about that.

I would like to remind senators that at the time we came into office, after five successive budget deficits, we had an Australian government debt of $100 billion. Labor managed that while they also privatised Qantas and the Commonwealth Bank. How bad is that? Interest rates peaked at 17 per cent for home owners and averaged 12 per cent under Labor, with unemployment at 11 per cent and inflation at more than 5 per cent. We have now had a number of years of economic expansion. We as a government have paid off that $100 billion. From the interest saved, of course there is more money for education, roads, health and infrastructure. The average interest rate under the coalition has been just over 7 per cent. Do not let anybody ever forget that. Unemployment has dropped to a record low of 4.9 per cent. Around 40 per cent of Australians hold private health insurance and have choice in the delivery of their health needs. Average annual inflation well below three per cent has been maintained. On every point, we have provided an answer to the untruths that Senator Wong has put in her statement for this matter of public importance. It is a matter of public importance, and we accord it its due priority.