Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will not spend a great deal of time continuing on the Higher Education Support Amendment (VET FEE-HELP and Tertiary Admission Centres) Bill 2009, given the proximity to question time. I had wanted to discuss today matters of education in my electorate, but in deference to the member for Corangamite, who has not yet had an opportunity to speak on this bill, I will confine myself to one last thought. Before the interruption I was speaking about the fact that I wanted Queensland and all other states to move to becoming reform states in the area of VET. I wanted to make one point about my electorate of Longman. The electorate of Longman ranks 137 out of 150 electorates in Australia in the number of people aged over 15 who have a post-secondary qualification. We are very short on post-secondary qualifications in Longman, and I believe that in becoming a reform state—if we can encourage Queensland to do that—we will be able to make a much bigger hole in that shortage, particularly in a world where we know we need skills training to proceed into the future. Those who wanted to hear a great speech from me on education in the electorate of Longman will have to wait for another occasion.

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