❓ Minister Kobelke accuses the Howard Government of misleading the public by conflating traineeships and apprenticeships for political gain, highlighting the differences in training duration and the potential for traineeships to be used as cheap labour.
AnsweredQoN 501Legislative Assembly
QuestionView source ↗
LIBERAL PARTY, TRAINEESHIPS AND APPRENTICESHIPS
Is the minister aware that the Liberal Party’s electoral advertising continues to mislead the Australian public by deliberately ignoring the essential differences between traineeships and apprenticeships? Mr KOBELKE
Is the minister aware that the Liberal Party’s electoral advertising continues to mislead the Australian public by deliberately ignoring the essential differences between traineeships and apprenticeships? Mr KOBELKE
AnswerView source ↗
I thank the member for her question and for her interest in training for young people. I made a statement in this House some time ago about the declining number of apprenticeships across Australia and the deceit of the Howard Government in bundling traineeships and apprenticeships together. Traineeships are very important and they have a rightful place, but people do not in six months learn the skills that they can over four or five years in apprenticeships. Apprenticeships have a place, but the Howard Government deceived the people of Australia by bundling traineeships and apprenticeships into “new apprenticeships” and then dropped the word “new” and said they were apprenticeships. Advertisements have now appeared in a local paper, the Stirling Times , with a picture of the Prime Minister and a graph which purports to indicate that apprenticeship numbers fell under Beazley. Kim Beazley as the then federal minister did more for training in this nation than any other minister in living history. He established the Australian National Training Authority. Kim Beazley put billions of dollars extra into training young Australians for industry. He has a very proud record. We see nothing but deceit from the Prime Minister - deceit, deceit, deceit! He is saying that someone who does four or five months on a traineeship is doing an apprenticeship. By doing that he fudges the figures and he ends up with corrupt graphs which tell us nothing, other than that we have a Prime Minister who aligns himself with deceit. It just happens that in the Sydney Morning Herald of 31 October there was a report on research done by the National Institute of Labour Studies Incorporated highlighting the difference between participants in traditional apprenticeships and traineeships, as reported in the Australian Bulletin of Labour. This report suggested that many “Jobnetwork providers” are using the new apprenticeships as surrogate wage subsidy programs. It cites information from a range of incidents in which recent reviews have shown that some employers mass enrol existing employees as trainees in order to receive a subsidy. The survey found that 47 per cent of traineeship non-completers felt they were being used as cheap labour. Some 47 per cent saw the wage subsidy as cheap labour - with no training! Yet we have a Prime Minister appearing in Liberal Party advertising suggesting that these are apprenticeships. It is absolute deceit, it is a scam, and the people of Australia will hold the Prime Minister accountable for trying to pull the wool over their eyes.
Mr KOBELKE replied: I thank the member for her question and for her interest in training for young people. I made a statement in this House some time ago about the declining number of apprenticeships across Australia and the deceit of the Howard Government in bundling traineeships and apprenticeships together. Traineeships are very important and they have a rightful place, but people do not in six months learn the skills that they can over four or five years in apprenticeships. Apprenticeships have a place, but the Howard Government deceived the people of Australia by bundling traineeships and apprenticeships into “new apprenticeships” and then dropped the word “new” and said they were apprenticeships. Advertisements have now appeared in a local paper, the Stirling Times , with a picture of the Prime Minister and a graph which purports to indicate that apprenticeship numbers fell under Beazley. Kim Beazley as the then federal minister did more for training in this nation than any other minister in living history. He established the Australian National Training Authority. Kim Beazley put billions of dollars extra into training young Australians for industry. He has a very proud record. We see nothing but deceit from the Prime Minister - deceit, deceit, deceit! He is saying that someone who does four or five months on a traineeship is doing an apprenticeship. By doing that he fudges the figures and he ends up with corrupt graphs which tell us nothing, other than that we have a Prime Minister who aligns himself with deceit. It just happens that in the Sydney Morning Herald of 31 October there was a report on research done by the National Institute of Labour Studies Incorporated highlighting the difference between participants in traditional apprenticeships and traineeships, as reported in the Australian Bulletin of Labour. This report suggested that many “Jobnetwork providers” are using the new apprenticeships as surrogate wage subsidy programs. It cites information from a range of incidents in which recent reviews have shown that some employers mass enrol existing employees as trainees in order to receive a subsidy. The survey found that 47 per cent of traineeship non-completers felt they were being used as cheap labour. Some 47 per cent saw the wage subsidy as cheap labour - with no training! Yet we have a Prime Minister appearing in Liberal Party advertising suggesting that these are apprenticeships. It is absolute deceit, it is a scam, and the people of Australia will hold the Prime Minister accountable for trying to pull the wool over their eyes.
I thank the member for her question and for her interest in training for young people. I made a statement in this House some time ago about the declining number of apprenticeships across Australia and the deceit of the Howard Government in bundling traineeships and apprenticeships together. Traineeships are very important and they have a rightful place, but people do not in six months learn the skills that they can over four or five years in apprenticeships. Apprenticeships have a place, but the Howard Government deceived the people of Australia by bundling traineeships and apprenticeships into “new apprenticeships” and then dropped the word “new” and said they were apprenticeships. Advertisements have now appeared in a local paper, the Stirling Times , with a picture of the Prime Minister and a graph which purports to indicate that apprenticeship numbers fell under Beazley. Kim Beazley as the then federal minister did more for training in this nation than any other minister in living history. He established the Australian National Training Authority. Kim Beazley put billions of dollars extra into training young Australians for industry. He has a very proud record. We see nothing but deceit from the Prime Minister - deceit, deceit, deceit! He is saying that someone who does four or five months on a traineeship is doing an apprenticeship. By doing that he fudges the figures and he ends up with corrupt graphs which tell us nothing, other than that we have a Prime Minister who aligns himself with deceit. It just happens that in the Sydney Morning Herald of 31 October there was a report on research done by the National Institute of Labour Studies Incorporated highlighting the difference between participants in traditional apprenticeships and traineeships, as reported in the Australian Bulletin of Labour. This report suggested that many “Jobnetwork providers” are using the new apprenticeships as surrogate wage subsidy programs. It cites information from a range of incidents in which recent reviews have shown that some employers mass enrol existing employees as trainees in order to receive a subsidy. The survey found that 47 per cent of traineeship non-completers felt they were being used as cheap labour. Some 47 per cent saw the wage subsidy as cheap labour - with no training! Yet we have a Prime Minister appearing in Liberal Party advertising suggesting that these are apprenticeships. It is absolute deceit, it is a scam, and the people of Australia will hold the Prime Minister accountable for trying to pull the wool over their eyes.
It just happens that in the Sydney Morning Herald of 31 October there was a report on research done by the National Institute of Labour Studies Incorporated highlighting the difference between participants in traditional apprenticeships and traineeships, as reported in the Australian Bulletin of Labour. This report suggested that many “Jobnetwork providers” are using the new apprenticeships as surrogate wage subsidy programs. It cites information from a range of incidents in which recent reviews have shown that some employers mass enrol existing employees as trainees in order to receive a subsidy. The survey found that 47 per cent of traineeship non-completers felt they were being used as cheap labour. Some 47 per cent saw the wage subsidy as cheap labour - with no training! Yet we have a Prime Minister appearing in Liberal Party advertising suggesting that these are apprenticeships. It is absolute deceit, it is a scam, and the people of Australia will hold the Prime Minister accountable for trying to pull the wool over their eyes.
Mr KOBELKE replied: I thank the member for her question and for her interest in training for young people. I made a statement in this House some time ago about the declining number of apprenticeships across Australia and the deceit of the Howard Government in bundling traineeships and apprenticeships together. Traineeships are very important and they have a rightful place, but people do not in six months learn the skills that they can over four or five years in apprenticeships. Apprenticeships have a place, but the Howard Government deceived the people of Australia by bundling traineeships and apprenticeships into “new apprenticeships” and then dropped the word “new” and said they were apprenticeships. Advertisements have now appeared in a local paper, the Stirling Times , with a picture of the Prime Minister and a graph which purports to indicate that apprenticeship numbers fell under Beazley. Kim Beazley as the then federal minister did more for training in this nation than any other minister in living history. He established the Australian National Training Authority. Kim Beazley put billions of dollars extra into training young Australians for industry. He has a very proud record. We see nothing but deceit from the Prime Minister - deceit, deceit, deceit! He is saying that someone who does four or five months on a traineeship is doing an apprenticeship. By doing that he fudges the figures and he ends up with corrupt graphs which tell us nothing, other than that we have a Prime Minister who aligns himself with deceit. It just happens that in the Sydney Morning Herald of 31 October there was a report on research done by the National Institute of Labour Studies Incorporated highlighting the difference between participants in traditional apprenticeships and traineeships, as reported in the Australian Bulletin of Labour. This report suggested that many “Jobnetwork providers” are using the new apprenticeships as surrogate wage subsidy programs. It cites information from a range of incidents in which recent reviews have shown that some employers mass enrol existing employees as trainees in order to receive a subsidy. The survey found that 47 per cent of traineeship non-completers felt they were being used as cheap labour. Some 47 per cent saw the wage subsidy as cheap labour - with no training! Yet we have a Prime Minister appearing in Liberal Party advertising suggesting that these are apprenticeships. It is absolute deceit, it is a scam, and the people of Australia will hold the Prime Minister accountable for trying to pull the wool over their eyes.
I thank the member for her question and for her interest in training for young people. I made a statement in this House some time ago about the declining number of apprenticeships across Australia and the deceit of the Howard Government in bundling traineeships and apprenticeships together. Traineeships are very important and they have a rightful place, but people do not in six months learn the skills that they can over four or five years in apprenticeships. Apprenticeships have a place, but the Howard Government deceived the people of Australia by bundling traineeships and apprenticeships into “new apprenticeships” and then dropped the word “new” and said they were apprenticeships. Advertisements have now appeared in a local paper, the Stirling Times , with a picture of the Prime Minister and a graph which purports to indicate that apprenticeship numbers fell under Beazley. Kim Beazley as the then federal minister did more for training in this nation than any other minister in living history. He established the Australian National Training Authority. Kim Beazley put billions of dollars extra into training young Australians for industry. He has a very proud record. We see nothing but deceit from the Prime Minister - deceit, deceit, deceit! He is saying that someone who does four or five months on a traineeship is doing an apprenticeship. By doing that he fudges the figures and he ends up with corrupt graphs which tell us nothing, other than that we have a Prime Minister who aligns himself with deceit. It just happens that in the Sydney Morning Herald of 31 October there was a report on research done by the National Institute of Labour Studies Incorporated highlighting the difference between participants in traditional apprenticeships and traineeships, as reported in the Australian Bulletin of Labour. This report suggested that many “Jobnetwork providers” are using the new apprenticeships as surrogate wage subsidy programs. It cites information from a range of incidents in which recent reviews have shown that some employers mass enrol existing employees as trainees in order to receive a subsidy. The survey found that 47 per cent of traineeship non-completers felt they were being used as cheap labour. Some 47 per cent saw the wage subsidy as cheap labour - with no training! Yet we have a Prime Minister appearing in Liberal Party advertising suggesting that these are apprenticeships. It is absolute deceit, it is a scam, and the people of Australia will hold the Prime Minister accountable for trying to pull the wool over their eyes.
It just happens that in the Sydney Morning Herald of 31 October there was a report on research done by the National Institute of Labour Studies Incorporated highlighting the difference between participants in traditional apprenticeships and traineeships, as reported in the Australian Bulletin of Labour. This report suggested that many “Jobnetwork providers” are using the new apprenticeships as surrogate wage subsidy programs. It cites information from a range of incidents in which recent reviews have shown that some employers mass enrol existing employees as trainees in order to receive a subsidy. The survey found that 47 per cent of traineeship non-completers felt they were being used as cheap labour. Some 47 per cent saw the wage subsidy as cheap labour - with no training! Yet we have a Prime Minister appearing in Liberal Party advertising suggesting that these are apprenticeships. It is absolute deceit, it is a scam, and the people of Australia will hold the Prime Minister accountable for trying to pull the wool over their eyes.
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