Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Hansard source

Thanks, Senator Walker. We've already heard from Australian tradies who love this program—providing the tools they need to succeed early on in their careers. The clean energy stream has a retention rate of 85 per cent after the first year, which is above average for comparable periods.

Now, we've seen Senator Nampijinpa Price, as the new shadow minister, make her position clear on this program. She seems to see it as wasteful spending. We know the Liberals' secret election review found that young people and multicultural Australians had deserted the party at the last election. I'll give you some free advice: scrapping a program designed to help young people into apprenticeships to boost housing supply is probably not the way to win over young voters, and promoting someone like Senator Nampijinpa Price is an interesting message to send to all those Indian Australians after her offensive remarks about them only a few months ago. The Liberals never learn, and that's why Australians are leaving them in droves.