Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Banking and Financial Services) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Given the history lesson, perhaps the minister would like to remind us about the peak of interest rates when the current Prime Minister was last Treasurer—reaching over 21 per cent, as I understand. Referring to the interest rate rise the government promised at the last election would not happen, didn’t the Reserve Bank also point out that another contributing factor was that ‘suitable labour is scarce’? Why has the government neglected significant investment in skills and training—resulting in, for example, the shortfall of 300,000 places in TAFE since 1999 and a shortfall of 100,000 university places since 2003?