Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business) Share this | Hansard source

We acknowledge that skills and training are critical to the manufacturing and resources industries that drive so many of our economies in these regions. The government has put in place, as we have spoken about before, the Supporting Apprentices and Trainees wage subsidy. This has of course provided crucial support across Australia but in particular in our regional areas, for apprentices and the small businesses that have those apprentices, throughout COVID-19. In remote and regional Australia, the subsidy has actually helped keep over 41,000 apprentices and trainees in work, in almost 22,000 small businesses. Without that subsidy, those apprentices and trainees might not have been able to be kept on the job. Senator Davey, you'd be interested to know that those figures actually include over 7,000 small businesses in your state of New South Wales. Again, the Morrison government is putting in place the policies to keep our apprentices and our trainees where we need them—on the job.