David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, my question is to the Minister for Education, the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and the Minister for Social Inclusion. What is the government doing to address the need for skills as the economy recovers?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I very much thank the member for his question, and I know that he is concerned about how the nation is preparing for the recovery and about the ability of constituents in his electorate to access new skills and new employment opportunities. We have seen in the past the consequences of skill shortages. We saw them under the Howard government and we saw what a decade of neglect of investment in skills development does. What we saw under the Howard government was skill shortages in many sectors of the economy. They had completely neglected, for example, the skill shortages in the child-care sector. They had completely neglected to prepare for the skills we would need as an ageing community and with growing demand in aged care. Perhaps worst of all, under the Howard government trade skills training and apprenticeships languished for a decade, with major skill shortages in a number of key sectors arising as a result.

In contrast to this woeful decade of neglect and mismanagement, this government is planning for recovery by investing in skills and training. I draw the attention of the House once again to our $100 million Apprentice Kickstart package, an important initiative to get young people into apprenticeships; to make sure that a kid leaving school this year gets a chance this summer with an employer to gain valuable trade skills. The incentive for employers for taking on a trades apprentice has moved from $4,000 to $7,350. It is a kick start; it is time limited; it is deliberately there to get apprenticeships moving and to give kids leaving school this summer an opportunity. I know that those who are concerned about the fortunes of young people in their electorates and are preparing for a recovery are working with their local employers on this important program. In addition, that program provides $20 million for pre-apprenticeship programs to assist those young people who need literacy and numeracy skills development in order to access an apprenticeship.

I would also draw the attention of the House to our $145 million Securing Australian Apprenticeships package. This is a package to help apprentices who find themselves out of a trade to get another opportunity. To date, over 23,000 claims have been paid under this initiative—that is, young people getting a new start having lost their employer during the days of the global recession. I think that is to be welcomed. Then, of course, we see 10 per cent of the contract labour hours of stimulus projects being labour hours for trainees and apprentices. The government has also established a national resource sector task force to coordinate the skills needs of our resource sector. We estimate that there are 630,000 Australian apprentices currently in training in the mining industry in Western Australia alone, but we know more needs to be done.

Our Productivity Places Program is also playing a role for the skills needs of the resources sector. Of 5,700 Western Australian job seekers enrolled in our Productivity Places Program, 800 are in areas such as extractive industries, mining and civil construction. We have also provided funding through the relevant skills council to upskill workers in the mining sector, and that is supporting the upskilling of 150 existing workers. Our universities are also responding to our new policies and settings. Demand for engineering courses in 2009 increased for the fourth year in a row and is up by 10 per cent in response to demand from mining and construction. This is a government that is planning for recovery, making the necessary investments in skills and training now—a stark contrast to the decade of neglect under the Liberal Party.