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

My question is to the Minister for Vocational and Technical Education. Is the minister aware that welders have been on the National Skill Shortage List for nine of the last 10 years? Isn’t it his government’s skills failure that has opened the door to importing burgeoning numbers of foreign workers to be exploited with much lower rates of pay and driving down the wages of Australian workers?

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

The member for Jagajaga attempted to ask a question about welders on the National Skill Shortage List yesterday. Interestingly, in asking that question directed to me, she asked the wrong minister; the National Skill Shortage List is in fact administered by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, so the member for Jagajaga cannot get right any of the basic elements of the way the national trading system operates.

I can say, again for the record, that we have 403,00 people in training in Australia in apprenticeships right now and 1.7 million people in training across a variety of different pursuits.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

Order! The minister is answering the question.

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

These are record numbers. This government has set a record expenditure level that has never been exceeded by any previous government. The simple point is that Australians in their hundreds of thousands are embracing opportunities to participate in the trades. We celebrate that on this side because we think they are nation-building trades. Those on that side have their comfort zone which, to sum up, is: if you haven’t got a university degree, you are a dud. You are all job snobs over there.