Mr FORREST (3:02 PM) —My question is addressed to the Acting Prime Minister. Is the Acting Prime Minister aware of the demand for skilled workers and apprentices in regional Australia? What is the government doing to encourage the uptake of apprenticeships, and are there any alternative policies?

Mr ANDERSON (Acting Prime Minister) —I thank the honourable member for his question and note that he is very concerned about this. He often raises the shortage of skilled labour along the Murray River to meet the needs of the horticultural and other industries. In this place we often hear, with all of the fervour of the recent convert, about community forums. It is a bit like fatherhood and reading—now we have community forums as though they are a recent invention. Having been involved in them now for 15 years or so, I recently had six days on the road and conducted a lot of community forums. I engaged in a lot of face-to-face time with people. Over those six days, I went to Coffs Harbour, Wagga, Gunnedah, Tamworth, Armidale, Eidsvold, Warwick, Mungindi, Warialda, Goondiwindi and Coonamble.

The interesting thing is that there was one issue that came up at every single one of those forums. It was the issue of finding enough skilled tradespeople. It came up everywhere. It was about getting truck drivers, electricians, carpenters, joiners, plumbers, motor mechanics, chefs, cooks and diesel mechanics. As I looked through the media recently, I noted that the Courier Mail in Queensland ran an article headed `Teens want to be masters, not apprentices'. It talks about the 500 apprentice positions available now along the Gold Coast to Sunshine Coast stretch of Queensland. Interestingly, in another related story, we hear of three young Australians—Brock Campbell, Lee Richardson and Phillip Lumsden, who are 21, 17 and 16 years of age respectively—who have moved to try to capture those opportunities. What is amazing is that they are looking for remuneration between $45,000 and $70,000 as qualified tradesmen when they finish their apprenticeships. So the remuneration is really very attractive indeed—reflecting, in part, the shortage.

Of course, that is very important in all of those rural electorates. It is important to the member from Rockhampton, who asked an earlier question. We need more of these people and they need incentives to work. But, before that, they need incentives to train. We have had a bit of chiacking from the other side. They say we are not doing anything to provide incentives. Yes, we are. The abysmal picture that we picked up when we came to government really has been turned around. We now have well over 400,000 new apprentices compared to about 135,000 in 1995. Can you believe it? Of those, and this reflects a significant rise as well in the proportion, around 34 per cent are in the trades and related occupations.

We are taking significant extra steps to meet their needs. I am indebted to my colleague the Minister for Education, Science and Training in this area. For example, today the situation is that each employer of a new apprentice in the bush at the certificate III or IV level receives $4,400 in commencement and completion incentives. They are also able to get a special incentive of $1,100 for new apprenticeships in skills shortages in rural and regional areas.

A more recent initiative was in April when the minister announced a new national skills shortage strategy to specifically tackle this problem in areas where there are shortages because of a new industry coming in or an old one declining or departing. That will test fresh approaches: shorter apprenticeships, specialised apprenticeship pathways in industries such as building and construction and closer coordination between schools and local business employers. We talk so much about community forums in this place, but what struck me was that employers and trainers everywhere on that trip said that we as a country are sending an unhelpful message, and we need to address that—all of us.

That message to our kids is that somehow to really make it these days you have to be in pursuit of a university degree—to be valued you have to pursue a career that involves a degree. The fact is that 70 per cent of our young people do not go directly to university. We need to avoid this message that we are tending to send that, if you cannot get into university, there is nowhere for you. Many of these newspaper articles talk about trainers and employers being concerned that if we cannot encourage young people to make it to a university degree we tend to encourage them not to try and to drop out when, in reality, we need to be highlighting the real jobs in what might be called the heartland—in these skilled occupations that are well paid. There are real opportunities and really good remuneration available.

What, in the face of this, does the ALP do in this place? We hear question after question on university places, but we almost never hear about the shortage of skilled people out there and the opportunities that are going begging for them. More than that, if the Labor Party were to have any credibility on this issue at all they would not only acknowledge it, talk about it and seek to address it but would start to condemn their state colleagues for the 300 per cent to 400 per cent increase in the cost of TAFE education in this country.