Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to be Minister for Schools, Early Childhood and Youth. Will the minister outline to the House how the government is investing in vocational education to help train the apprentices and trainees that our economy needs today and in the future? What are the risks to this investment and how is the government addressing them?

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Kingston for her question. This government certainly understands the importance of investing in skills education. We are taking important steps to make sure that we improve the skills of Australian students. Yesterday I had the opportunity of meeting with the Australian Apprentice of the Year, Jason Bryan. I got a good sense from him of how much excitement there is amongst the trades and apprentices about the big effort that is coming from this government on skills training. Over the last three years, we have made an investment of some $10.9 billion in improving skills and training for our future workforce.

It is important to let the House know that we have also made significant investments specifically in vocational training itself, an investment of some $11 billion in three financial years—2008 to 2010. Of that, we have invested over $800 million in capital works upgrading and modernising hundreds of training facilities around the country. We have also invested significantly to make sure that the global financial crisis does not impact significantly on apprenticeships. We can see that we have very encouraging signs of an uptake in apprenticeships. We were sitting at around 448,000 apprenticeships in September 2010, the highest number ever recorded.

As well as that, we recognise that quite often when young Australians are in school they may not choose a higher education route. They might want to get into that skills pathway whilst they are still at school, so we are investing $37.5 million in creating national trade cadetships, providing a pathway with the Australian Curriculum for secondary school students who are interested in a career or a trade. I have spoken about our investment in trade training centres, some $2.5 billion over 10 years to enable every high school student in Australia to have access to a trade training centre. That is an important investment.

I was asked about the risks to the investment. I have to say that when it comes to political slogans—and I remember the three-word slogan 'Just Say No', which I think may have been President Reagan's wife's slogan—there is one that really gets members of the opposition going, and it is trade training centres. All you have to say is 'trade training centres' and they are out of the blocks like they are training for the London Olympics. I can inform the House that we continually see members of the opposition showing up at these trade training centre openings. We had the member for Mackellar at the Pittwater Hospitality Trade Training Centre on 28 June—she was very happy to attend. We had the member for Barker only a couple of weeks ago at the Lower Murray Trade Training Centre—very happy to attend. Of course, we had the member for Macquarie attending a centre, as was reported in the Hawkesbury Gazette of 23 March. There she is: 'Trade training centre unveiled'—I recognise that face.

The fact is that the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow minister have put on record their cuts to education, which include cuts to the very trade training centres that opposition members cannot wait to be a part of the opening of. If you ever wanted a more significant comparison between a commitment to real policy that is helping young Australians and the hypocrisy of those opposite, this is it.