My question is to the Treasurer and Acting Prime Minister. Isn’t it the case that the trade skills training visa has a requirement that a position is unable to be filled by local recruitment but that not one of the 50 questions on the employer’s visa application form actually requires them to say if they have advertised the job? Will the government now fix this?

Any apprentice who was seeking a visa to undertake training in Australia could only get one if a regional certifying body certified that no suitable Australian was available.

Government Member:

How do they know?

These regional certifying bodies are set up, authorised and supervised by state Labor governments.

Doesn’t that come as a surprise! So the state Labor governments set up regional certifying bodies. They have to be endorsed by the state Labor governments. For present purposes we believe that the state Labor governments are not failing in their duties. The regional certifying bodies have to give that certification. That being the case, no Australian would be displaced from a training opportunity by this visa. I make it clear that foreign apprentices have to pay full fees and that they are not eligible for tool kits, Commonwealth trade learning scholarships, youth allowance or any other Australian government assisted measure.

ACTU President Sharan Burrow was reported in the Australian on 15 April 2005 as saying that she did not oppose fee-paying overseas students taking up apprenticeships in regional Australia ‘as long as it is not at the expense of local students getting their opportunities’. That is why we have regional certifying bodies.

Mrs Irwin interjecting—

Order! The member for Fowler!

You come out to the kids in Western Sydney—

The member for Fowler is warned.

I conclude by saying that in September 2005 there were 397,800 apprentices in training, which was a 146 per cent increase on 1996. So there has been a 146 per cent increase—a record number of people in training—a regional certifying body which is supervised by the state Labor governments and a policy which does not cost Australian apprentices any opportunity whatsoever.