Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, why have nearly 140,000 apprentice and trainee places been lost under this seven-year-old government?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question about apprentices and the trends that we're seeing in apprenticeship numbers. I am pleased to inform the House that, in the 2019-20 budget, the government provided $585 million for skills measures to implement long-needed reforms in the VET sector, and we also created up to 80,000 new apprenticeship places through our new incentive scheme, which was kicked off on 1 July, 2019, which is after the period of the trends that the member is referring to. So the funding the government put in place to deal with these issues commenced from 1 July 2019. Apprentices and their employers have readily taken up this new scheme, with almost 6,000 additional apprentices signed up in just the first six months.

I note that, at the same time we have increased the funding to the VET sector, states and territories, which are responsible for the delivery of VET, including TAFE funding, have withdrawn their funding for VET from $4 billion in 2013 to—on the most recent figures we have—$3.1 billion in 2017. So the Commonwealth is stepping up and meeting our commitments to ensure we get more apprentices in place and to address the issues that the member has raised.

But I do note, to compare and contrast, that, when the Labor Party was last in power, between 2011 and 2013, Labor cut employer incentives to businesses that employ apprentices nine times, totalling $1.2 billion. When the Leader of the Opposition was Deputy Prime Minister, Labor cut $241 million from incentives to encourage employers to take on apprentices. In 2012-13, the number of apprentices and trainees in training collapsed under Labor by 22 per cent, or 110,000. I'm not going to cop lectures from a Labor Party that doesn't know how to manage money and doesn't know how to run an economy and does not have a plan.

Ms Ryan interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Lalor will cease interjecting.