Mr BONSON - 2005-05-03
Budget 2005 has three elements: less tax, local jobs and better skills. My question relates to the third element. The Treasurer is aware that Australia is suffering from a skills and labour shortage. Will the Treasurer advise the House on specific incentives contained in the budget which will increase our trainees and apprenticeships?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker,I thank the member for Millner for his question because this is one part of the budget which has gone down exceptionally well with business and industry in the initial feedback because they know that the Territory traditionally has a chronic skills shortage. We are no different now, except that the rest of Australia also has an encroaching skills shortage.
Credit to him, Prime Minister Howard finally woke up to this just before the election last year, so he said to himself and his minders: ‘I know what we need, I know what we need. When I was a kid at school in the 1940s and 1950s, we had technical schools. Brendan, you go out there and tell them we are going to have Australian technical colleges’. That is about as far as it has gone because neither Brendan Nelson nor the minister assisting him, whose name escapes me, have any idea of what these Australian technical colleges look like or how they should work. Neither does industry, which is supposed to lead these technical colleges, and nor do state and territory governments because they have deliberately been kept out of the way.
So while Howard might muse his way through the 1950s despite the fact that we are in 2005 and come up with what he thinks is a solution, he has not worked it out with anyone, nor has he told anyone exactly what he wants to do. We have very clear fixes in relation to our own skills shortage.
The centrepiece in this budget is a commitment to skilling and training; 10 000 Territorians to be trained over the next four years. We will pay a Work Wear Work Gear cash bonus of up to $500 for every new trainee and apprentice to help them get started in their career. We will fund 40 new vocational education and training scholarships per year worth $4000 each, to assist students with course fees and material costs. We will introduce Build Skills NT, a $500 000 initiative to upgrade the skills of existing Territory workers, and we will be looking across those fields of automotive building, construction, hospitality and mining industries. There is $400 000 in Budget 2005 for pre-employment training programs …
Mr Dunham: $400 000! Wow!
Mr STIRLING: … $200 000 to develop a new school-to-work initiative called Work Ready NT.
The member for Drysdale gets himself in hot water every time he scoffs at our Jobs Plan because I have it on record that he was secretly complimentary about the Jobs Plan to others, and that he said: ‘I wish we had done it’. Every time he opens his mouth about the Jobs Plan, I know what you said, brother, and you were highly complimentary. You said: ‘God, I wish we had done it’ so don’t come in here with your ‘wow, wow, wow’ because you actually think it is a good idea. I have that on good authority! I have it on good authority, talking to your mates, how good you think this program is.
There is $4.4m to the VET in Schools program, and we are going to increase funding for VET at Charles Darwin University by $1.5m, taking the total annual base funding for Charles Darwin University to $35.2m. That additional $1.5m going to Charles Darwin University will be directed straight to the trades school.
You can scoff at the $500 here and $200 there, but you have to look at the context of the total package. It is a powerful package for skills training in our work force and will build on the success of Jobs Plan 1. We have lifted the training effort by 25% a year. We have more than 3100 Territorians currently in training, a 35% increase on any time the CLP was in government. Both Jobs Plan 1 and now Jobs Plan 2 will stand in stark contrast to the efforts of members opposite when they were in government.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker,I thank the member for Millner for his question because this is one part of the budget which has gone down exceptionally well with business and industry in the initial feedback because they know that the Territory traditionally has a chronic skills shortage. We are no different now, except that the rest of Australia also has an encroaching skills shortage.
Credit to him, Prime Minister Howard finally woke up to this just before the election last year, so he said to himself and his minders: ‘I know what we need, I know what we need. When I was a kid at school in the 1940s and 1950s, we had technical schools. Brendan, you go out there and tell them we are going to have Australian technical colleges’. That is about as far as it has gone because neither Brendan Nelson nor the minister assisting him, whose name escapes me, have any idea of what these Australian technical colleges look like or how they should work. Neither does industry, which is supposed to lead these technical colleges, and nor do state and territory governments because they have deliberately been kept out of the way.
So while Howard might muse his way through the 1950s despite the fact that we are in 2005 and come up with what he thinks is a solution, he has not worked it out with anyone, nor has he told anyone exactly what he wants to do. We have very clear fixes in relation to our own skills shortage.
The centrepiece in this budget is a commitment to skilling and training; 10 000 Territorians to be trained over the next four years. We will pay a Work Wear Work Gear cash bonus of up to $500 for every new trainee and apprentice to help them get started in their career. We will fund 40 new vocational education and training scholarships per year worth $4000 each, to assist students with course fees and material costs. We will introduce Build Skills NT, a $500 000 initiative to upgrade the skills of existing Territory workers, and we will be looking across those fields of automotive building, construction, hospitality and mining industries. There is $400 000 in Budget 2005 for pre-employment training programs …
Mr Dunham: $400 000! Wow!
Mr STIRLING: … $200 000 to develop a new school-to-work initiative called Work Ready NT.
The member for Drysdale gets himself in hot water every time he scoffs at our Jobs Plan because I have it on record that he was secretly complimentary about the Jobs Plan to others, and that he said: ‘I wish we had done it’. Every time he opens his mouth about the Jobs Plan, I know what you said, brother, and you were highly complimentary. You said: ‘God, I wish we had done it’ so don’t come in here with your ‘wow, wow, wow’ because you actually think it is a good idea. I have that on good authority! I have it on good authority, talking to your mates, how good you think this program is.
There is $4.4m to the VET in Schools program, and we are going to increase funding for VET at Charles Darwin University by $1.5m, taking the total annual base funding for Charles Darwin University to $35.2m. That additional $1.5m going to Charles Darwin University will be directed straight to the trades school.
You can scoff at the $500 here and $200 there, but you have to look at the context of the total package. It is a powerful package for skills training in our work force and will build on the success of Jobs Plan 1. We have lifted the training effort by 25% a year. We have more than 3100 Territorians currently in training, a 35% increase on any time the CLP was in government. Both Jobs Plan 1 and now Jobs Plan 2 will stand in stark contrast to the efforts of members opposite when they were in government.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016