Kate Thwaites (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the minister for skills and training. How is the Albanese Labor government supporting apprentices and encouraging more women into trades?

Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Skills and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Jagajaga for her question. It wasn't long ago that we were at Melbourne Polytechnic meeting apprentices and teachers and talking about the skills that we need to deliver to the economy and to nationbuilding projects. It's absolutely critical. While the Albanese government is investing record dollars in apprenticeships, there's no doubt we need to make sure that there are not just enrolments but also completions. The problem is we see too few completions. In fact, there has been a decline in trade apprenticeships being completed over the last decade. In 2012, 57,000 trade apprenticeships were completed. In 2021, it had fallen by more than 20,000. Over that decade we saw a decline in trade apprenticeships. So too was the failure to ensure greater participation of women in traditional trades. When we compare ourselves to countries that we often compare ourselves, eight per cent is a very low number for women in traditional trades. We must do much better than that.

The Albanese government has introduced the Australian Skills Guarantee that ensures that on Commonwealth-funded projects we have at least one in every 10 workers being an apprentice. We've also now set goals to double the proportion of women in Commonwealth-funded projects as well—that's projects over $10 million—because we need to see a greater level of participation. Even though there are too few women in traditional trades, I recently was in the member for Cooper's electorate, with the assistant minister for health. We were at a company that employs female electrician apprentices, and we spoke to Georgia. She said to us that she was very happy to be an electrician—secure work, great pay—and she wanted to ensure women followed her. She said, 'Just back yourself.'

That's a fantastic sentiment: back yourself. But the Albanese government will back you too, with non-financial and financial support to ensure that women complete apprenticeships in the traditional trades. And, indeed, we will ensure it by removing cost barriers. The fee-free TAFE proposal, the initiative that we have set in train now for a year, has ensured that we have removed cost barriers for women apprentices to go into building and construction, for example, which is absolutely vital. And we continue to see more of that. Well done, Georgia, for sending that message out. What a role model she is and others are.

But industry must also lead. What sort of business model, in 2023, is hiving off half the working population in terms of who should be applying for certain jobs? That is not a good approach by industry. We need to ensure that women have opportunities in what have been male dominated industries.