Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Small and Family Business) Share this | Hansard source

Vocational education and training is a valuable career path for so many Australians, and it deserves to be recognised for the contribution that it makes to our economy. We invest in it because we know that vocational education and training is vital to our economic success. We established the Skilling Australians Fund, and I'm pleased to say that this has been signed up to by all states except, unfortunately, the state of Victoria and the state of Queensland. The other states that have signed up to it will now have the opportunity to create tens of thousands of new apprenticeship places. We're also investing an additional $1.2 billion on skills programs as a government, and we also provide $1.5 billion to the states and territories for skills through the National Skills and Workforce Development Specific Purpose Payment. We also recently announced a $60 million wage subsidy pilot for apprentices in rural and regional Australia.