Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to rise today to speak about something that I have been passionate about for many years, having been an employer and trainer of apprentices for over 30 years. It was interesting to listen to the debate on the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill 2006. I note that the New South Wales state government are rolling out a set of trade schools. I wonder why they are competing with their own TAFE colleges. It seems to me that the money would be better invested in ensuring that their TAFE programs on the ground are actually well funded and able to deliver training all across New South Wales. But I do welcome their decision to roll out trade schools. I certainly hope that my electorate—and that of the state member for Murrumbidgee, Adrian Piccoli—will be a recipient of one of these trade schools, which will hopefully complement the technical college that I have been sincerely lobbying for since the Prime Minister’s announcement of the Australian technical colleges.

Let us go back to those 13 years of Knowledge Nation, when I was in business training apprentices and when and the value of apprentices and of trades and services was worthless as far as the Labor federal government were concerned. They were concerned only with ensuring that every child went to university, regardless of whether or not that was their chosen career path. That put an enormous amount of peer pressure on parents: parents felt that they were failing their child if they did not send their child to a university. I am not saying at any stage that our children should not go to a university—of course they should. But around 30 per cent of Australian students went to university while 70 per cent were not given the opportunity. Instead, they were slugged by Labor states—and by coalition states, when they were in power a long time ago. They were not given any incentive or opportunity to attend TAFE and get into the trades and services.

In fact, employers have always had to fund their students going to TAFE. They have had to fund the payments and they have had to adapt their workplaces while their students had block releases for TAFE. So the entire cost of a student going to TAFE to do a worthwhile apprenticeship in a worthwhile trades and services area—whether it be electrical, automotive, airconditioning, concreting or fencing—had to be paid for by the people themselves. The apprenticeship was not considered worthy of funding by the Commonwealth Labor government and the state governments. Why? Because people were interested only in this incredible Knowledge Nation, in getting every child into a university and in putting pressure on parents so that they felt they had failed their children if they did not direct them to university. Most of these children (a) did not want to go to university and (b) wanted to get a job, so university would not have been the appropriate place for them.

There is a desperate need to build this nation, and you cannot build this nation with academics alone. I believe the people on the ground who have apprenticeships and go on to get a trade certificate are the real nation builders of Australia. They are the people who can actually put together the concrete foundations from which Australia can move forward with a roads system, an infrastructure system, an electrical system and a motor vehicle system. All of these things are required from tradespeople, the people who have always been made to feel as though they are not as worthy as somebody with a degree. I think that is a crying shame. I am not allowed to say ‘disgrace’ in this House anymore, so I think it is a crying shame.

See this speech in context