Mrs ELSON —My question is addressed to the Minister for Schools, Vocational Education and Training. Will the minister inform the House of the progress of his discussions with the states and territories regarding the implementation of the modern Australian apprenticeship and traineeship system?

Dr KEMP —I thank the member for Forde for her question. I am pleased to inform members of the House that I will be meeting this Friday with the members of the Australian National Training Authority ministerial council in Melbourne to discuss the implementation of the modern apprenticeship and traineeship system. Unlike those failures on the other side of the House who did not know how to deal with the problem of youth unemployment, ANTA is desperately concerned to make sure that there are arrangements in place which will give young people the opportunity to work at award wages, or better, and to get training which will lead to real jobs. The opposition was not able to do either for almost 30 per cent of young people who were looking for full-time work. What members on the other side of the House are about is mounting a totally baseless scare campaign about youth wages based on falsehood.

Mr Crean —Three dollars and five cents an hour!

Dr KEMP —Let me set the facts on this matter completely straight so that even the $2-billion man over here, the man who spent $2 billion on labour market programs in the first eight months of the year—

Mr Howard —And saw unemployment go up!

Dr KEMP —And saw unemployment go up during the election campaign. He spent $2 billion in the most irresponsible spending binge since Ros Kelly. He makes her financial management look thoroughly respectable compared with the way he behaved with the labour market programs last year. We might even be able to get into his head what the situation is.

Under the training arrangements that will be embodied in the workplace relations legislation, young people will be paid the full appropriate award wage. During the election campaign, the government committed itself to a take-home pay guarantee. This legislation fulfils that take-home pay guarantee. In addition to receiving full award pay, whether that is the junior rate or the full award rate for that industry for productive work, young people will have the opportunity to receive full award pay which all those poor young people who have been forced into part-time work at the moment—forced by your unfair dismissals legislation—do not receive.

The opposition virtually destroyed full-time work for young people in this country. In fact, over the last six years it virtually destroyed full-time work for everybody looking for work. Over the last six years there have been fewer than 30,000 additional full-time jobs. Virtually the whole increase in employment has been in part-time work and these part-time jobs do not have training attached to them.

What our legislation will do is provide the opportunity for young people to be paid at the full rate, not at some discounted youth rate, and get training into the bargain. I can assure the House that the states and the Common wealth government are determined that we will put in place policies that will provide many more real training opportunities that lead on to real jobs for young Australians.