Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I only have a short time, but I do want to utilise this time to brag about the wonderful visit that I paid last week to the apprenticeship and trade college for southern Perth in Western Australia. On that visit I was accompanied by the Hon. Alannah MacTiernan MLA, the member for Armadale. It was a good news visit. When we got there, we were met by Messrs Rod Slater, who is Chairman of the Australian Technical College—Perth South, and Trevor Williams, the principal. The reason for our visit was that the government, under Deputy Prime Minister Gillard, had committed to keeping the former Australian technical college open and renaming it the Apprenticeship and Trade College—Perth South. It will have campuses in Armadale and also in Maddington in the federal seat of Hasluck.

Before I go any further, I want to spend the short time that I have allotted to me to talk about the wonderful young students that Ms MacTiernan, the member for Armadale, and I met. At that stage there were five young men—as you will realise, a lot of them were still on holidays. With the extra funding from the federal government that has now guaranteed the school a full and healthy life, it is catering for 363 students. The beauty of this college is that it is also going to become a registered training organisation and is offering certificate III level courses in skills shortage areas, including automotive building and construction, metal and engineering, and electrotechnology. The college also plans to commence operations as a group training organisation.

As a quick demographic overview, Armadale is in the foothills of Western Australia. It is a very solid working-class area but is a distance from Perth. To have this trade college guaranteed a full life and a brand new building is a wonderful story. The five students that we met were five very fine young men who certainly told their representative members of parliament what they thought on all things, ranging from the skills shortage to their apprenticeship to why they did not have a skate park in the town of Armadale—about which the member said, ‘You’ll have to talk to the new government; it was on our list at the next election, so we hope that it still gets delivered.’

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It didn’t take long for the blame game to start, did it?

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will take that. When we talk about skills and training, I know it is very touchy for your side of the chamber, because you did sit there with your hands tied firmly behind your backs for all those years of boom and were caught asleep at the wheel. Fortunately, we will not be doing the same as your lot.

I will name the five students that I met. They are fine young Australians. They are Andrew Spence from Kelmscott, studying bricklaying, and Stephen McCagh from Armadale, also studying bricklaying. The boys very proudly took Ms MacTiernan and me out the back to show us the walls that they had constructed. I said, ‘I can’t leave here, boys, being half Italian, without you giving me a spirit level and I’ll see how well you’ve done.’ Concrete is in our breeding. Those walls were perfect, I have to confess. I said to the boys, ‘How do you do that? Every time I do one I get the lumpy concrete that makes one end of the wall stick up higher than the other.’ We then met with Rhys Elliot from Mount Nasura, which is a suburb around Armadale. He is studying steel framing. Another of these fine young Australians was Kenan Beaumont from Lockridge—for those who do not know, Lockridge is a suburb an hour and a half from Armadale—who trains and buses every day to go to the college because of the opportunity that he is given to do his certificate III up there. He is doing steel framing. We also met Jordan Manderson from Brookdale, studying cabinet making.

One of the projects that we were shown, apart from the brick walls, was a very fine cubbyhouse. This cubbyhouse—I kid you not—is probably the size of a one-bedroom, one-bathroom flat in Canberra. You would not believe that this project was put together by students in their first year. It was absolutely amazing, to the point that the member for Armadale tried to do a barter job and buy it from them for her grandchildren. I made the statement that I wished that cubbyhouse was around when I was a young bloke in the early years of my marriage because I probably would have spent plenty of time there when my wife decided I would be better off living in it for a few months.

Anyway, it was a fine visit and a great announcement by the federal government. The federal government has to be congratulated. Like I said, we will do everything we can. We will never, ever sit on our hands and preside over the greatest skills shortage in Australia’s short history. That will not happen. We have made that very clear.

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, well, I really thank the senators opposite for their interjections! I will start naming some of the fine senators over there who were part of the last government and sat on their collective hands and presided over the greatest skills shortage in history—Senator Bernardi, from South Australia.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities, Carers and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Bernardi interjecting—

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, great. You should be very proud. I am proud of what our government is doing; I am proud of the announcement; I am proud of the people of Armadale and all those students who have the opportunity to go to this training centre to learn their skills—and they are actually being paid a training wage as well. It is fantastic. When they come out of the centre they will do the first year of their apprenticeship. They will be job ready. The training centre will also be, as I said, a registered training organisation, which means it is a host employer. The apprentices will not just be thrown out on the scrapheap and told that in Perth the streets are lined with gold—‘Go west, young man, and you will be rich, but as a government we’re not going to spend any money on training.’ We will never do that.

I commend the people involved. I commend the chairman, Mr Slater, and the principal, Trevor Williams. They were so very proud of the Rudd Labor government’s announcement that it would keep their organisation going and do everything it could to continue the growth in skills training.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They were going, and you cut them out!

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You, Senator Ronaldson, are probably the last person who would want to have a crack at me when I am talking about skills training, because you were barely into the first term of your parliamentary career with the Howard government when you sat there and followed every vote that took away skills training or did not contribute to skills training. So, Senator Ronaldson, from Victoria, be very mindful of who you are having a crack at and why you might be having a crack. It was quite a poor interjection.

The member for Armadale and I consistently and continually lobbied for the continuation of this college and some certainty for its future, but one has to confess that the hard work was actually done by that fine member for Hasluck, Ms Sharryn Jackson. If I may say so, ‘Jacko’ and I go back a long way. You would not find a more committed person for young workers and young Australians than Ms Jackson, the member for Hasluck.

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have to tell you, if any of you lot—through you, Mr Acting Deputy President—had one ounce of dignity in your veins when it comes to training or employees, you could stand up and take bragging rights, but unfortunately you do not. Not one of you. So the best thing you can do is sit back and acknowledge what has been done by that fine member for Hasluck, who was so warmly welcomed back to the parliament. Thank goodness we got Sharryn Jackson back as the member for Hasluck, because what a wonderful job she has done in the short time since her re-election on behalf of her constituents in the electorate of Hasluck. Well done, Ms Jackson—congratulations. If there had been a few more hardworking, diligent members like the member for Hasluck when that lot were in government we would not have had to witness the greatest debacle in skills training, through all those boom years in Western Australia.