Mr ABBOTT (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs)(11.14 a.m.) —I do intend to try to give explanations to as much as is capable of explanation in the various accusations and interjections from those members opposite. One important issue that the member for Batman (Mr Martin Ferguson) raised earlier was this whole question of apprenticeships and traineeships. I am advised by the department that apprentice and trainee commencements were 67,900 in 1994-95, 85,100 in 1995-96 and are estimated to have been 94,500 in 1996-97.

I should also draw to the attention of the member for Batman the advice I have received from the department that in this government's budgets for 1996-97 and 1997-98 Commonwealth funding for vocational education and training totals $1.354 billion, compared with an expenditure of only $1.2 billion when the Labor Party was in government. These figures, I am advised, show that the government has increased its allocation on vocational education and training by $144 million, or almost 12 per cent.

I now wish to return to some of the more general comments that the member for Batman and other members opposite have made. As I have said, there is no easy answer to the unemployment problem. The socialistic answers of the 1970s failed. The ultra-market solutions that were tried by the former government in the 1980s were disappointingly slow to work. Obviously, what the new government is moving towards is, if you like, a new paradigm which builds on the strengths of the market but which does not expect it to do everything.

The question that I really should pose to the member for Batman and other members opposite is: what is the Labor Party's answer to these problems? Over 13 years, as I said, unemployment averaged over eight per cent. So, plainly, the answers opposite were not so brilliant. The member for Batman seems to be suggesting that we should resurrect Working Nation, with all its $2 billion a year expense. Is the shadow Treasurer (Mr Gareth Evans) going to provide the member for Batman with $2 billion? Can the member for Batman guarantee that should he be whisked magically onto the government benches, that he would have an extra $2 billion to spend on this? Is that the kind of guarantee that the member for Batman can give, because if he cannot give that guarantee, he is exposed as a phoney, as someone who waxes self-righteous in opposition but does nothing in government.

What are the answers that the member for Batman has? So far, the only answer that the member for Batman has come up with is the idea of job sharing. Job sharing was described as a ludicrous and nonsensical solution by his colleague—and, I dare say friend, the member for Melbourne (Mr Tanner), his rival for the leadership of the national left faction. So plainly there are just no answers on the other side of the House.

Mr Martin Ferguson —I am on the national left, am I?

Mr ABBOTT —You tell me, Martin. I do not want to spend too much time on the contribution of the member for Banks (Mr Melham). He accused the government of going back to the old days. Of course, it was the member for Melbourne who accused many members opposite of wanting to go waltzing down memory lane, hand in hand with Pauline Hanson. It was the member for Banks who talked about the former government bringing the nation together and not dividing communities. Even the member for Banks surely must find the suggestion of the former Prime Minister—Mr Keating—as some kind of great conciliator, some great healing figure, slightly ludicrous. Let us face it, the former Prime Minister was the man who regularly denounced people in this very building as unrepresentative swill, and so on.

Mr Melham —He never came from the back. He always came from the front, which is more than can be said for—

Mr ABBOTT —I do want to make a few comments, prompted by the remarks of the member for Banks and I will continue these comments in a moment. In particular, I want to comment on his remark that the policy that the government has adopted on Abstudy is in some way the creation of my former adviser. My former adviser had no policy role whatsoever and has had absolutely nothing to do with any policy proposals since we came to government—but I will continue this in a moment. (Time expired)