Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Vocational and Technical Education. Does the minister believe that it is acceptable that a number of the sacked Maxi-TRANS workers in Ballarat, including Mr Mark Walker, specifically requested training but were denied the opportunity by the company? What action—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The standing orders specifically say that people shall not be named unless it is integral and important to the answering of the question. That question can be asked without that name being given, and it is out of order.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Mackellar. I call the member for Ballarat. I am listening carefully. If the name is not needed to make the question clear, the member for Ballarat need not use it.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Does the minister believe that it is acceptable that a number of the Maxi-TRANS workers in Ballarat, including Mr Mark Walker, specifically requested training but were denied this opportunity by the company? What action will the government take to provide more training support so that Australian companies like Maxi-TRANS can turn their semiskilled workers into fully qualified tradespeople rather than see them lose their jobs to temporary, skilled workers from overseas? Will the government now join Labor in making its No. 1 priority to train Australians first and to train them now?

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Ballarat will resume her seat. In calling the Minister for Vocational and Technical Education, I rule that the first part of that question was asking for an opinion, the second part was in order and the third part was not needed.

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think the last part was a commercial! I thank the member for Ballarat—and sit down, he said. At the end of the day, as I tried to explain amongst all of the baying at the moon from those opposite, Maxi--TRANS is a company that has lifted an enormous amount of weight in the Ballarat economy when it comes to training people.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What about those 35 workers?

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have almost 4,000 people in training in Ballarat. When Labor was last in office that figure was about 1,000. So at the end of the day there is a lot of work going on in Ballarat when it comes to training. The individual circumstances of individual workers, the relationship they have with their employers and the decision to train is a partnership that workers and their employers should forge.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So you don’t care about those 35 workers?

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Ballarat, I am sure, wants to stay in the chamber.

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What is absolutely critical is that Australian business understands quite plainly that investing in their workforce is exactly that—it is not a cost to their business; it is a form of investment.

But at the end of the day it still comes back to where we were in March last year, when we were asked exactly the same sorts of questions: a vilification of people who have come from another country, not to take jobs—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Methinks they protest their innocence too much! Those people come not to take jobs but in fact to create jobs. According to a MaxiTRANS spokesman, in relation to the people who have been stood down, due to whatever circumstances the company has decided, it has cut 35 to 37 unskilled or semiskilled jobs. But none of the people reduced from the company’s casual workforce were qualified welders. At the end of it, that proves the point even further. This company has taken it upon itself to train people first—that is the government’s priority. The training of Australians first has always been this government’s priority.

This is a bit rich coming from the mob opposite. In 1993, when he was the minister in charge of training, the Leader of the Opposition presided over the single biggest drop in apprenticeship numbers in Australia’s history—30,000 people in the dumpster. This government has more than repaired that circumstance, and the energy of companies like MaxiTRANS should not be criticised in this place under privilege by the member opposite.