Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

The government is proud of the performance of the industry specialist mentoring program that Senator Griff mentioned in his question. It was established in 2017. It was always a time-limited program, due to finish on 30 June this year, which it has done. According to my notes, it has assisted 30,000 apprentices, which is a great outcome. The program provides in-training support and mentoring in particular to help apprentices stay in their program. While the program has ended, the government intends to ensure that, going forward, all Australian Apprenticeship Support Network contracts will require providers to facilitate mentoring as part of their in-training support—it will be taken into an existing program. The government recognises the important value that mentoring has in supporting young Australians through their apprenticeship. This of course is in addition to many other of the other investments I mentioned, over $500 million in skills and our skills package, which is a $3 billion investment in vocational education. (Time expired)