Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister for Social Inclusion. What is the government doing to prepare Australia’s workforce for the transition to a low-carbon economy?

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

I thank the member for Braddon for his question. Mr Speaker, it was my pleasure earlier today to ‘try a trade’ in front of Parliament House with my colleagues Minister Wong, Minister Arbib, Minister Combet and Parliamentary Secretary Jason Clare. Now, I will let the parliament in on something that probably would be fairly obvious: we were not particularly good. In particular, I was not very good at the bricklaying that I was asked to do.

I thank WorldSkills Australia for bringing ‘Try a Trade’ to Parliament House. Try a Trade is a program to interest young people in apprenticeships to make sure that they get the skills they need for the future. Through WorldSkills Australia our young people compete internationally, showing their trade skills to the world. Last time we did that as a nation we ranked fifth in the world, which was a tremendous achievement, and many of those young people came back from showing their skills to the world with gold medals, silver medals and bronze medals.

As we were trying a trade today we had a discussion that we have had on many occasions with those who work in training, and that is they are already embracing the future. They are already training young Australians for jobs in a low-carbon economy. Of course, some of those jobs are jobs that we find it hard to imagine today, jobs that will evolve in a low-carbon economy. But many of the things we need to do to train Australians for a low-carbon future are in the very traditional trades—in plumbing, in electrical trades, in the way in which we design and construct buildings—

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Tuckey interjecting

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

and we are already moving to embrace this future. The government has already moved to ensure that 50,000 Australians get an opportunity in green jobs and green training opportunities and we have moved to provide $200 million through our teaching and learning capital fund to enable our vocational education and training system to get ready for training in areas like green plumbing, EcoSmart electricians, efficient heating, ventilation and air conditioning and the work that will need to be done on hybrid cars. I am pleased to be able to announce at the forthcoming COAG meeting that right around the nation there will be agreement on a new National Green Skills Agreement, which is about making sure that our training system is ready for the jobs of the future and that even the most traditional trades have their training arrangements updated for new green skills.

As the nation moves forward and embraces the future, getting ready for the green economy of the future, of course we find the Liberal and National parties stuck in the past—in climate change denial, scepticism and inaction. They are stuck in the past, they are divided and they are unable to imagine how they can get to this new green future. Of course, the answer is obvious: get out of the way and support the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and work with those Australians who are readying themselves for the future. The opposition, including the member for O’Connor, stay firmly in the past where the dinosaurs are. They still think that is appropriate. Australians are marching past them in their embrace of the future. It is time that they got out of the way and passed the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.