John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Greenway for her question. She is right in her question to raise concerns about the barriers that exist against young people receiving in this country genuine training opportunities. There are two areas of concern that the government has that are working against opportunities being available to young people. They are the continuing opposition to school based apprenticeships in both New South Wales and Western Australia. This is a matter that I raised at the COAG meeting in February this year. At that meeting I received an undertaking from all of the premiers. Let me say that in some states of Australia—and Queensland is a state that comes to mind—there are no barriers to school based apprenticeships. But in New South Wales the union dominated award system results in there being barriers to school based apprenticeships. The existence of these provisions still in both New South Wales and Western Australia is holding up the formation of four of the Australian technical colleges in those two states.

Why is it that technical colleges are open for business and going ahead in Queensland but they are not in some other states? I notice my colleagues representing the aspirations of young people in these parts of Australia nodding in agreement because they know that the opposition to school based apprenticeships, which we all know is nurtured by the union movement, which has a stranglehold on the apprenticeship system in New South Wales and Western Australia—

See this speech in context