Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, as you know, in terms of an economic downturn due to a pandemic, the first people to be let go are apprentices and trainees, and that's why the Morrison government put in place policies to ensure that businesses that had employee apprentices and trainees were able to keep them on at the beginning of the pandemic. What we have seen, as a result of our Supporting Apprentices and Trainees wage subsidy, is 123,000 apprentices have been kept on since the beginning of COVID-19. But we've gone further than that and we have put in place our Boosting Apprenticeships Commencements wage subsidy. We wanted to bring on 100,000 new apprentices in a 12-month period. I'm pleased to inform the chamber that we did that in less than five months. We have now extended that wage subsidy and, to date, colleagues, over 140,000 new commencements, new apprentices and trainees, have been brought on.