Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is extremely hypocritical for the Labor Party to be criticising the Liberal Party and the LNP about youth jobs. In my home state of Queensland, the Queensland state Labor government has shut down three agricultural colleges, in Dalby, Emerald and Hinchinbrook. Shame! What better way to create jobs for the youth and to look after the environment—and they've done this in the middle of one of the worst droughts in the last century. Dalby's on its knees; Emerald's on its knees. And what do you do? You shut down agricultural colleges. You've got the hide to come in here and criticise the Liberal government for investing $3 billion in the VET sector. Compare that to what federal Labor did in 2012-13. They took away 85,000 apprenticeships. We won't be taking any lectures on skills from Labor, after spending the past six years fixing the mess that they've left behind in our VET sector.

The greatest fall in apprenticeship numbers on record occurred in 2012-13 when the number of apprenticeships and trainee commencements fell by 85,000 places in a single year. Senator Wong, the member for Sydney, the member for McMahon and the Leader of the Opposition were sitting around the cabinet table at that time and did nothing. The member for Rankin—Jimmy—was chief of staff to the Treasurer and did nothing. In over just two years, all the same faces opposite gutted over $1.2 billion from employer incentives to take on apprenticeships. Nine times in two years the Labor Party wielded the knife against apprenticeship incentives. Every time they needed a cut, they went straight for apprenticeships.

This is the consequence of a Labor government that could not control its spending. When the Leader of the Opposition was Deputy Prime Minister, he, along with Senator Wong as finance minister and Mr Bowen as Treasurer, cut over $240 million out of apprenticeship incentives in a single year. How much noise did the member for Cooper make at the time, while leading the ACTU? None. But this is just the beginning of the mess that Labor left behind, the mess that has taken us six years to fix.

Of all the damage that the Labor Party did to the vocational education sector, nothing did more damage than their VET FEE-HELP changes. And wasn't that a debacle! This program saw thousands of students exploited by unscrupulous providers as a direct result of Labor's poorly designed reforms to this program. Since 2016, over 37,000 students have had VET FEE-HELP debts re-credited by the Commonwealth. That's right; we've been the ones to bail out our youth here. We are the ones looking after the youth after they were thrown under a bus by Labor. No government, in good conscience, could allow this behaviour to flourish. But the Labor Party let it happen.

Repairing this disastrous program has been an ongoing agenda item across all three terms of this government. The total cost to date of repairing this unconscionable program is just under $250 million. And fixing this problem is a cost to the taxpayer. However, this government is committed to ensuring Australians have the right skills for the workforce of today and the future. This financial year, we are investing over $3 billion in VET. That includes $1.5 billion to be given to the states and territories every year through the National Agreement for Skills and Workforce Development specific-purpose payments. Despite that, despite Queensland receiving generous amounts of money from the federal government, they still can't keep those agricultural colleges open. They always talk about the environment. You made a big song and dance today about jobs for youth. Where were you when the agricultural colleges were being closed down? Nowhere. You didn't care.

The federal government is putting $1.1 billion to fund the government's own skills programs, including employer incentives and support for Australian apprenticeships. The government's skills packages are contributing to an increase in Commonwealth funding to VET over the forward estimates. Over the period from 2018 to 2022, funding from the Commonwealth to the states remained stable at around $1.7 billion a year. Funding for the Commonwealth's own programs is expected to increase each year over the budget forward estimates to over $1.3 billion by 2022-23. We have commenced work to establish a new skills— (Time expired)