Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I do welcome Ms Gillard and Labor as recent converts to the cause of training and apprenticeships. I only wish that the key aspect of their training policy was not such a mess, as we now know it is from the estimates hearings. I heard Senator McLucas’s injection—let me just have a look at what Labor is proposing for technical and further education. The headline policy is federal Labor’s $2.5 billion Trades Training Centres in Schools Plan. This is what the ALP says on the website:

Federal Labor’s Trades Training Centres in Schools Plan would provide between $500,000 and $1.5 million to secondary schools to build or upgrade trade workshops, Information, Communications and Technology labs and other facilities such as:

Metal or woodwork workshops;

Commercial kitchens;

Hairdressing facilities;

Automotive workshop;

Plumbing workshop;

Graphic Design laboratories;

Computer Laboratories; and

The technical facilities.

The program will also fund the purchase or replacement of a range of equipment such as:

Safety equipment;

Soldering and Welding equipment;

Ovens;

Wood and Metal turning lathes;

Grinders; and

Drills.

As the policy says, this is to happen at every one of 2,650 secondary schools for the one million students in years 9 to 12. That is what this policy relates to.

At what sort of standard? According to www.kevin07.com.au, Labor’s policy will mean that the infrastructure and equipment being used in schools is of the same standard as that being used by industry. Kids who want to pursue a trade at school are being told that on average less than $1 million will go to each school and that they will have an industry standard of training in all these areas in each school—metal or woodwork workshops, commercial kitchens, hairdressing facilities, automotive workshops, plumbing workshops and so on. There is no way that industry standard training facilities can be made available in 2,650 schools in this country. That is an impossibility—not for a million dollars.

You might say, as I would say: why don’t we consolidate some of this training and perhaps have specialist high schools, for example, in plumbing? You could consolidate the training in certain areas. You could do that.