Gavin Pearce (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Employment, Workforce, Skills, Small and Family Business. Will the minister inform the House how the Morrison government's plan for upskilling Australians and training apprentices is working to secure new and better paying jobs as part of our economic recovery. Minister, are you aware of any alternative approaches?

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment, Workforce, Skills, Small and Family Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question and all the hard work he does to support 2,300 apprentices in his electorate who are having a crack, learning a trade and securing their future. Last week I had the privilege of visiting the Hunter to see firsthand how the Morrison government's plan is skilling Australians and getting Australians into work in regional Australia, and what I saw was a plan that is working well.

There are businesses like Kari Armitage's Quarry Mining at Beresfield, employing locals and giving the next generation a crack. She employs 80 people, eight of them apprentices—apprentices like Isla and Clancy, young people from the Hunter who are getting on with what's available to them. In fact, Kari has put on three new apprentices because of the federal government's plan in the budget—in the last three weeks alone, three apprentices. I caught up with Mick, a retired coalminer, who's now running shut-downs, keeping people safe and plants running. I visited Glencore's Glendell mine, looking at the Young Indigenous Pathways Program and chatting to Patricia, who wants to be a shotfirer—she wants to blow things up—which I think is fabulous.

We recognise that across all of these areas, all of these young Australians, all those apprentices, all of these pathways and all of these options, all of them have been put in place because of the Morrison government's budget and approach. They've allowed the Hunter to keep growing through COVID and they've allowed countless other regions across Australia to do likewise.

Last week we saw unemployment coming down to 5.5 per cent. We see more people in work now than before COVID—the only advanced economy in the world to be able to claim that. We saw youth unemployment at the lowest level in 12 years. In fact, since JobKeeper came off at the end of last month, we have seen a 15 per cent reduction in young people in Australia aged 16 to 21 on youth allowance (other) in the last 7½ weeks. That's a two per cent reduction a week in young Australians on that payment because of what the Morrison government is doing from a recovery point of view. From the $2.7 billion into apprenticeships, there are another 170,000 apprentices on top of the 143,000 we had previously. That's 310,000 apprentices. And what did Labor announce in its budget reply? Ten thousand. The Morrison government's plan is 310,000 apprentices. And what's Labor got? Three per cent—that's it. That's Labor's plan for apprenticeships—just three per cent. Well, we're backing in 100 per cent of Australians, not just Labor's three per cent.