My electorate of Hinkler is hurting due to a worsening skills shortage and inaction from this Labor government. While a hand-picked few met here in Canberra with the Treasurer and Prime Minister for a three-day roundtable, the predetermined outcomes were simply more spending, more debt and the threat of more taxes.
While the Canberra meeting unfolded, I spent two days with the Hon. Scott Buchholz, the shadow minister for skills and training, to hear the real stories directly from manufacturers, business owners, chambers of commerce and training providers in the Hinkler electorate. I thank the member for Wright for the time that he took to listen to my community. Together we hosted a series of meetings and visited manufacturers. Yes, regions like Hinkler are delivering and driving the nation’s productivity, but the skills shortage continues to bite badly.
David Coe recently purchased a well-known mechanics business in Bundaberg, Trulsons Mechanical. Mr Coe simply can’t find enough trade qualified people to work on vehicles and teach new apprentices the trade. These teachers, the skilled workers, are understandably chasing higher wages in the mines, leaving a shortfall of experience in our regional communities.
The Brisbane Olympic Games is less than a decade away. Queensland needs a strong, skilled workforce now, more than ever, to deliver infrastructure and services. Yet, instead of tackling the skills and training crisis head on, Labor is presiding over a 60-year low in productivity. The Treasurer has simply run out of ideas.
When the coalition left office, we had more than 400,000 apprentices and trainees in the system. Today there are 100,000 fewer. This is leaving Australian businesses high and dry.
Labor is failing both employers who are desperate for skilled workers and the young Australians who deserve opportunities. Under Labor, the pipeline of skilled workers just isn’t there.
The Hinkler region has some of the hardest working businesses in the country, just like Trulson’s Mechanical. These operations must be supported to expand, to grow and to teach the next wave of tradies the art of the trade. But instead, like so many regional employers, they’re struggling to find the skilled staff they need. It’s holding them back, and it’s holding my region of Hinkler back.
Labor has no real plan on productivity or training. Australia needs more than words and a meeting behind closed doors in Canberra. That doesn’t help businesses in Bundaberg and Hervey Bay.
What we need is a proper plan to build a skilled workforce and back regional communities.