Amanda Stoker (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

85,000, Senator Scarr, in a single year. Senator Wong and the member for McMahon were members of cabinet at the time. In that very same single year they cut over $240 million out of apprenticeships. And did we hear them bleating and carrying on as they have been today? No. It's one standard for them and a different standard for everybody else. That's the kind of two-faced hypocrisy that we, as Australian people, have simply had enough of.

I could go on for an awfully long time about the damage they did to that sector. The changes they made to VET FEE-HELP saw thousands of students being exploited by unscrupulous providers, and they were a direct result of the poor governance that existed in Labor's poorly designed reforms to that program. Those reforms have led, since 2016, to the Commonwealth having to re-credit VET FEE-HELP loans to 37,000 students, so egregious was their exploitation. These were vulnerable students, systematically exploited while dodgy providers, who flourished under the no-rules environment that the Labor Party had in place, pocketed the lot. No sensible, responsible government could possibly allow that to flourish, yet that's exactly what they did.

So we have reformed that program, and we are continuing to drive improvement in that sector. Since we started making changes in that area in 2014-15, over $1.8 billion has been saved each and every year. That's what good governance will do for you. That is what an approach that cares about outcomes for people who are seeking work will do. With about 300,000 additional jobs created by the private sector in the year 2018-19, we have seen employment grow by 2.6 per cent. That might not sound like an enormous number, but it's well above the 1½ per cent growth forecast that was in the budget, and it is accompanied by a whole range of economic indicators that stand out as leading the way while the rest of the world is struggling with difficult economic headwinds—across the economy. We'd love for wages to be enormous, but here's the key indicator: they increased in excess of inflation. Inflation was steady at 1.6 per cent, and wages increased by 2.3 per cent. In circumstances in which there is a small increase in wages, Australians are, in real-wage terms, getting ahead.

The way we need to look at maximising opportunity for Australians is to ensure that their cost of living doesn't get too high, that they can afford the cost of all the things around them and that there are lots and lots of job opportunities from which to choose. That is exactly what the coalition government is providing. We are doing it day in, day out. Whether by boosting apprenticeships by 85,000 or by subsidising and incentivising key skills shortage areas—the PaTH program—we are bringing opportunity to Australians who need it most. (Time expired)