Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Bishop, for the supplementary. As I was just saying, the digital revolution in our schools being encouraged by this government will go a long way to ensuring that our children have the technical skills they need to fully participate in this new and exciting world. But we are looking at further action that the government can take in this area. In addition to digital literacy, there is also a need to address the chronic shortage of professional skills that the previous government allowed to emerge in the ICT sector. We have an absolute crisis in ICT enrolments in this country at the moment, and for 11½ years those opposite did absolutely nothing about it. We have a major pipeline shortage, and this crisis is only going to grow over the next few years because of the indolence of those opposite. (Time expired)