Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition has given a commitment to do it; why doesn’t the Prime Minister? The honourable member for Deakin conveniently blames the states. He could be the Minister for Vocational and Technical Education he is so good at blaming everybody else! That is what the current minister excels at, apart from his buffoonery in question time and his expertise at bluff.

Why doesn’t the government take up Labor’s plan to fix the skills crisis in this country? It cannot be fixed overnight; no government could fix it overnight; you cannot fix a problem which has been brewing for 10 years overnight. Some of the traditional trades in this country have had shortages recognised by the Australian Bureau of Statistics every year for the last 10 years, but only in 2004 did the government take any steps to fix it. And when we look at those steps, we see they involve the creation of a new, completely duplicated system—25 colleges across the country which will, at best, create 7,500 apprenticeships a year.

Australians deserve better than this half-hearted, ham-fisted attempt to fix our skills crisis. They deserve a coordinated effort. They deserve COAG, every state premier and the Prime Minister of this nation, getting together to fix the problem. That is not what we see from this government and we will only see it from a Labor government.

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