Mrs HULL (9:09 PM) —I rise this evening to support the Skills Australia Bill 2008. I think it makes sense. I welcome anything that looks at enhancing and increasing opportunities for employers and young people in rural and regional Australia. I am hopeful and optimistic that the intention behind creating Skills Australia is to ensure that it is for all Australians, including those in rural and regional areas.

I have spoken many times in support of measures by the previous government to alleviate the skills shortage, particularly measures that are continuing strongly in my electorate. For nine years, I made it a point, when everyone was focused on university degrees, to focus on apprenticeships, trades and certificates. I will not change that point of view, because that is where the majority of Australian opportunities lie. As I have said before in this House many times, we cannot all be chiefs; there have to be some indians. It is vitally important that our young people in the electorate of Riverina and in other electorates are given opportunities to work and to own their own businesses as a result of having done an apprenticeship in some trade or other occupation.

In my electorate I have an ongoing issue with employers being unable to find skilled workers locally. It is becoming increasingly difficult. More and more of the employers in my electorate are having to source skilled workers from overseas. They do not want to do that. They do not want to go to the expense of doing that. But the local tradespeople and the local businesses, in order to secure their current employment, to get productivity gains up, to meet their forward contracts and to cater to their market, do need more workers. At this point in time many of them are forced to go overseas and look for skilled workers to bring in under the skilled migration program.

The establishment of Skills Australia, in my understanding from reading the bill, will enable the government to receive quality advice about the current, emerging and future skills needs of Australia. That is a bit questionable. I am not sure that anybody has ever been able to forecast or anticipate what skills are going to be available and required. I hark back to the Intergenerational report, which the former Treasurer, Peter Costello, was master of. I look at that and see the difficulties that the new body will have in forecasting and anticipating the needs for the future. Today we talked a lot in this House about carers, elderly people and aged care. I am very concerned for the disability sector. I wonder, when there will be such a small number of people entering the workforce between 2020 and 2030, how on earth we are going to actually get the people with the skills and the training to be able to care for and meet the needs of the disabled and the elderly. It is a very big issue and, hopefully, Skills Australia will have the adequate expertise to make provisions for the future.

In supporting the bill, I urge the Minister for Education and Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations to ensure that Skills Australia will have an adequate representation of a cross-section of rural and regional industry and rural and regional people, because we are every bit as entitled as everyone else to have our views and issues reflected when these forecasts are happening and decisions are being made.

It is my understanding that the Skills Australia concept has received wide support from the industry. But, again, I want to ensure that there is strong rural and regional business input at all levels. I am not quite sure—it has not been clear—of the relationship that will be formed between Skills Australia and the National Industry Skills Committee. I think that is something that needs some very careful thought.

There must be incentives to encourage people to undertake training in areas of skills need. Supplying additional places will not automatically ease the skills shortage; you have to put incentives into place in order that business operators and others will take up the opportunities. There has been no real action to date from any Labor government—and I do not single out this Labor government, but I talk primarily about that of New South Wales, the state that I hail from—to ensure that incentives are put in place. In fact, I am very concerned about the current Labor government’s first 100 days. I have to be critical about this because it affects the people that I represent. I am not criticising the government purely for the sake of being critical; I think I have grounds for being critical about the cuts that have already been made to the incentive program for agricultural and horticultural trainees. Cutting the apprenticeship incentives for the agriculture and horticulture program—a $47.7 million assistance scheme designed to encourage workers to return to agricultural industries by providing grants of $800 for tool kits and up to $1,000 to help with training fees—is very sad and is not a very good signal of the commitment to and understanding of the needs and issues of rural and regional youth who are looking to enter the workforce.

It is very important that we encourage our young people to stay and work in regional areas. I try to encourage them to stay and work in the Riverina. I have worked tirelessly with Charles Sturt University and Riverina TAFE to give our kids opportunities in exciting career pathways. We now have veterinary science, dentistry, clinical sciences and pharmacy at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga. These are the sorts of career options that many young people want to follow. If you introduce them into a rural and regional university you are more likely to get rural and regional kids staying and working in regional areas. I have worked similarly with TAFE. We have some fabulous joint programs, diplomas and degrees with Riverina TAFE and Charles Sturt University. To see this assistance scheme scrapped was very disappointing. We need to keep strengthening our regions, and I am concerned that the opposition does not really understand the needs of rural and regional areas and the support that rural apprentices require.

Ms Neal —They certainly don’t; the opposition is completely clueless.

Mrs HULL —I am sorry—you are dead right. I am so used to it; it takes a little bit of undoing. I am concerned that the government does not understand the training needs of rural apprentices. Unless we do something really serious and continue with the incentive programs to ensure that young people remain in rural and regional Australia, there will be a price to pay, and all Australians will pay that price. It is absolutely imperative that agriculture is considered one of the fundamental requirements of the Australian people.

We have some significant issues that we need to confront. I would like to read out some statistics. I am not quite sure where the member for Throsby got her statistics from with respect to the former government’s approach to apprenticeships. In 2006 there were 3,750 apprenticeships in training in the Riverina electorate. That is not a fudged figure. There was no smoke and mirrors or cloaks and daggers to get those numbers. In March 1996 there were 1,420 apprentices. That figure well and truly more than doubled in that period of time.

As a medium-enterprise businessperson and a prolific trainer of apprentices, I know the difficulties in the years prior to the Howard government’s election in getting any incentives or recognition for training apprentices. It was simply all about university degrees. Those who wanted to go to TAFE or do the admirable trades and services apprenticeship in any area were simply considered not worthy. I raised it in this House with the government that I had been part of since my election in 1998. I was very concerned about the way in which parents were considered unsuccessful if their child was not doing a university degree. If you were at a barbecue and somebody asked you what your child was studying at university, the drop-dead barbecue stopper was to say, ‘My son is a panelbeating apprentice.’ The peer pressure on parents to send children to university regardless of whether or not it was really their forte was quite strong, and a lot of young people were in university doing degrees that did not lead to better employment prospects.

We saw the decline of apprenticeships over that period of time. It took some time before the former government picked up and ran with this issue that needed to be addressed. Thankfully, they finally did and I congratulate this government for continuing on that pathway. I hope there is particular consideration for those rural and regional people who make up such a great part of the nation’s prosperity and GDP.

The New South Wales state government has issued a press release through Adrian Piccoli, the member for Murrumbidgee, announcing that there will be a trade school in Griffith. I congratulate the state government for putting a trade school in Griffith. I have long sought a technical college in the Griffith area because I think it is one of those areas that desperately require some sort of functional area where kids can concentrate on entering a valuable trade. I do congratulate the New South Wales state government and hopefully we will see that school opened in 2009. Surely the construction of that facility will be on track.

In supporting the bill we have before us today, I say to the minister: well done for pursuing the skills that Australia workers require. I do not accept the criticisms and accusations of lethargy directed at the previous government because I think that our track record on vocational education and training genuinely speaks for itself. You cannot fudge the truth. You can allege percentages and use smoke and mirrors, but you simply cannot fudge the truth. The truth is there to be known. I am sure there is further growth that can take place with Skills Australia. All I ask of the minister is that she ensure Skills Australia has adequate representation from rural and regional Australia, because we are certainly entitled to have access and support as well. In supporting the bill, I urge and encourage the minister to ensure rural and regional Australians are included and that we do govern for all of Australia.