Julie-Ann Campbell (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

A couple of months ago, I was in Acacia Ridge and I was standing face to face with the bonnet of a car. The person behind the wheel was the Deputy Prime Minister. He had an excited look in his eye and, at that moment, he put his foot down on the pedal of that car. The engine screamed and the wheels spun, and you might be wondering how I am here today given that experience, but the truth is that we were at a TAFE Queensland SkillsTech in Acacia Ridge. It is a leading trade training centre, the largest in all of the Southern Hemisphere. I'm very proud to have that in our electorate of Moreton. On that occasion, the Deputy Prime Minister was on one of two state-of-the-art chassis dynos that are part of making sure that we give automotive skills to those people who are going to enter the industry.

In terms of what is important for people who are going into trades, it is all about making sure that the tradespeople of the future are given the skills they need. We visited people from carpentry there. Those are the people who are going to build the homes of the future—something incredibly critical. I'm very proud to be part of this Labor government because this is a Labor government that is not only giving people skills of the future that will allow them to have good jobs; it is also a Labor government that will assure that they have free TAFE and that they will have the ability to have 20 per cent off their student debt as well.

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