Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister. Does the Deputy Prime Minister recall his recent public boasts that this week’s budget was driven by him and the National Party? Why then did the Deputy Prime Minister allow his Liberal colleague the minister for training to slash the only training incentives program targeted specifically at rural and regional areas—the Rural and Regional Skills Shortage Incentive—which provided a $1,000 extra incentive for employers to take on apprentices in the bush?

Mark Vaile (Lyne, National Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We as a government have done more to improve skills training in regional Australia and give access for young people in regional Australia to vocational training and to university places. There has been a significant debate about skills since Tuesday night. I know that the minister responsible has responded to this. Today the Treasurer has responded in detail. Can I just say that, on the Australian technical colleges, two of the campuses that are up and operating happen to be in my electorate. The basis on which they are there is that the private sector was running one of them before we announced our policy in the 2004 election.

The reason is that the state Labor governments were cutting back on the vocational training opportunities across Australia. We announced a policy of rolling these out across Australia and providing opportunities for year 11 and year 12 high school students to link in with industry and be trained in advance of them taking up apprenticeships. This is a policy that has been initiated by this government, expanded by this government and funded by this government in this budget.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Albanese interjecting

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

The member for Grayndler is warned!