Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I would like to thank the Apprenticeship and Traineeship Employment Partners organisation for inviting me to speak recently at their annual awards night. They do an excellent job in providing skills, training and employment for young people across the great south-eastern corridor of Melbourne and down to the Mornington Peninsula, in the great state of Victoria. ATEP was founded in 1987 by Neil Hamilton and Geoff Cockram to help battle the serious problem of rising youth unemployment in Victoria. They started by providing training and skills to young people and then connected them as part-time apprentices to small businesses who could not afford to take on full-time apprentices.

The incredible success of this organisation is self-evident. Since 1987, ATEP have helped employ over 4,000 apprentices and trainees. I was honoured to be invited to the ATEP awards night a couple of weeks ago. I would like to recognise the winners of the ATEP awards and thank them for their service to the Goldstein community and to the broader Melbourne community. First, Matej-John Urbach-Gugich from Korumburra Secondary College was the winner of the best Schools Based Apprenticeship and Traineeship Community Project. Lachlan Lampard, from Marnebek School, won the SBAT 2016 Encouragement Award Community Project.

These school based apprenticeships and traineeships are a smart way to help increase employment opportunities for young people. Apprenticeships and traineeships combine paid part-time work with finishing a student's schooling so that young people can get the skills they need to succeed in the workforce and also benefit from their high school education. I would like to congratulate Jay Cottle, who is the year's recipient of the Mal Foster Memorial Award for Best Overall Apprentice. Finally, we must thank the host businesses, who are vitally important in providing the employment for our trainees, and, in particular, the winner of the Neil Hamilton Honorary Award for the Host Employer of the Year, Stegbar.

I am proud of the work that ATEP and their host employers do to provide training and employment for the people in the Goldstein electorate and across Melbourne and Victoria. I again congratulate all the winners and the nominees on their amazing work. In the end, the point of ATEP is to help get people into jobs and provide them with opportunities. I would hope that, regardless of the divisions and views in this chamber and the other place, every member and every senator commits themselves to helping young people invest in their own future so that they are able to build the type of life that they want as the foundation for the type of country we want to be—one where we recognise thrift, responsibility and hard work and where people are properly honoured and respected. Every single trainee and every single apprentice who participates in the ATEP program contributes to the foundation of our nation's great success.