James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I had a real sense of deja vu when I was sitting here during question time today listening to the questions asked by those opposite, and I had to check the date just to make sure that we had not been transported back three weeks ago when the Senate last sat and those opposite pursued a very similar line of questioning on an unrelated but obviously to them very important matter. That matter was, of course, the Solicitor-General. They asked question after question, day after day, but I note upon return to the Senate this week that they have lost their interest in that matter and they are no longer taking it up.

I hope that in a few weeks time they look back at their questions on this matter in a similar light and they move on, because what they have demonstrated is a total lack of interest in the policy issues that affect the lives of the Australian people. They have demonstrated a total obsession with their ideas—their fantasies—of scandals that need to be pursued at the expense of real policy issues that actually affect the lives of Australian people.

I would have thought that someone such as Senator Cameron, himself a former union official, who now in his new life is a self-appointed spokesperson for working people, would actually be interested in the policy merits of this issue, in apprenticeships and in what this government is trying to do to fix the absolute disaster that was left to it by the former government and the quartering of apprenticeship numbers across the country, but no. All that Senator Cameron appeared to be interested in doing was slurring the education minister, slurring former senator Bob Day and making two very serious accusations, which I think should be dealt with.

The first part of his accusation—or, certainly implied by his comments—was that this government is engaging in a practice of buying the votes of crossbench senators with taxpayers' money. That is a serious accusation, which he has absolutely failed to back up and absolutely failed to demonstrate is true. The second thing which he engaged in was an attempt to suggest that former Senator Day is someone who is able to be bought by taxpayers' money to a training organisation. That is a very unfair and unjust slur.

I have had the pleasure of knowing former Senator Day briefly in this role, as we briefly overlapped in the Senate, and I also knew him in both of our previous lives prior to being senators. All that I can say about former Senator Day is that in all my personal dealings with him I have found him to be an honourable person, an upstanding person, an honest person, a person who tries his best. He has obviously fallen on hard times with his business, and that is a sad thing. That is something that all of us should be sad about—not just for him and his workers and his customers but because of the distinguished contribution he had been making to the Senate prior to that. I think he is a loss to this place. But those opposite are only interested in smear and innuendo without much evidence to back it up.

Why don't we turn to the actual policy issue at hand here—the actual substance of the issue of apprenticeships. The previous government cut $1.2 billion in apprenticeship incentives in government, and that led to the single largest drop in apprenticeships on record. Perhaps it is not a surprise then that they are not so interested in talking about the policy merits but instead are pursuing a strategy of smear and innuendo.

Senator Birmingham established and commissioned the Apprenticeships Reform Advisory Group to consider a range of issues, including incentives, pre-apprenticeships and alternative models. The advisory group made 22 recommendations, including to explore and pilot alternative apprenticeship delivery arrangements. The government addressed this recommendation by providing $9.2 million under the apprenticeships training alternative delivery pilots initiative. The Australian government is funding five projects under the pilots. The pilots are being delivered by Master Builders Australia, the National Electrical and Communications Association, the North East Vocational College, the Australian Industry Group and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The pilots will test the training models, which will provide alternative skills development options for both industry and those undertaking the training. The Turnbull government wants to support industry efforts to explore new arrangements and examine and test potential regulatory or administrative barriers to innovative, industry-led apprenticeship training practices, something we have to do due to the failure of the former government.

I end my remarks by awarding a gold star to Senator Moore, who was able to ask a policy question today in Senate question time, and I encourage those opposite to come back tomorrow with some more substantive matters.