Doorstop: Apprenticeships

Well it’s good to be in Gladstone, and it’s certainly great to be at GAGAL (Gladstone Area Group Apprentices Ltd) looking at the future for trades and skills in this area.

Talented young people here coming to get a job and skills that will take them for the rest of their life into good, well paid, highly skilled jobs. It’s very important.

 

REPORTER: You have had a chance to speak to some of the apprentices, what’s some of the feedback you have received?

 

CAMERON: Well they think it’s great, they think GAGAL’s done a great job for them. They are really keen to get their apprenticeship under their belt and become a tradesperson and be able to move around the country as I did. You can move anywhere in the world if you have got a skilled trade.

 

So it’s a really important thing to do and we need the skills, we need less reliance on overseas skills, we need more young people trained in Australia. We need the TAFE system to be refurbished and brought back to where it was, an iconic training system, and organisations like this really help in that approach.

 

REPORTER: We have seen quite a decline in apprenticeship numbers here in the Gladstone region. What is the answer to building those back up and quickly?

 

CAMERON: Well I think some of it’s a bit of a culture.  In days gone by it was the State Government instrumentalities that put apprentices on and the private sector would then take them on as tradesmen.

 

I am meeting some of the private companies this afternoon and I will be arguing with them that the culture has to change. That there needs to be an acceptance and a realisation that even though there is a cost to putting young apprentices on to start with, in Germany 12 months after they finish their apprenticeship the company has got it’s money back and they are actually making money for the company.

 

It’s a long term commitment both for the apprentice and the company but we need those skills, we need the apprenticeships and we need less reliance on importation of overseas labour.

 

REPORTER: We have got places like GAGAL which outsource apprenticeships or do apprenticeships here and then we have got the private companies  like NRG who run their own apprenticeship programmes. Is there a preference for which way we focus on moving forward or does there need to be a balance?

 

CAMERON: Well I think there has to be a balance. I am a great supporter of the group training approach. When I did my apprenticeship many many years ago I did twelve months in a group training centre. It gave me a good base for the rest of my apprenticeship and when you combine that with the skills that you get in TAFE it really produces highly skilled tradespeople.

 

So I think there has got to be a balance, I think industry has to have a good look at what the emerging skills are, what changes need to be made to the trades area to meet the emerging skills, and work collectively to build a base within this country that makes us internationally competitive for our industry with highly skilled apprenticeships.

 

REPORTER: Recently Chris Ketter was in town and he had bit of a war of words with Ken O’Dowd about who should fund, whether it’s State or Federal and who is doing enough. Where does the responsibility lie?

 

CAMERON: Well I think it’s a joint responsibility. I think the States have got responsibility, the Federal Government has got responsibility and so has the employers.

 

I really think that combination is the way to go to ensure that we have got  enough skilled trades coming through.

 

The problem we have at the moment with the Federal Government, the Turnbull Government, they are putting all the training funding going through the importation of skilled labour from overseas, charging business to bring them in and then spending that money apparently to train people up.

 

I think it’s a nonsense. Labor is saying clearly that we will fund TAFE appropriately, we will make sure there’s funding there for the TAFE system to bring people through and companies like this who are working with TAFE will get benefits from that.

 

We are saying that two thirds of Federal Government funding should go to the TAFE system and only good organisations like GAGAL should get any support. Those that have a long history, a track record of delivering apprenticeships in this area.

 

We want all the fly by nighters to be gone, we want TAFE to actually get more funding and we want GAGAL to be part of that system of highly skilled tradespeople coming out, ensuring the productive performance of the economy increases and we are internationally competitive.

 

REPORTER: You have mentioned a few times that you trained as a fitter, it’s a bit of a walk down memory lane is it?

 

CAMERON:  It’s a long memory for me, but yes I was an apprentice fitter/machinist and that allowed me to come to Australia - some people say that’s a good thing other people say that’s a bad thing - but I am here and it allowed me to bring my family to Australia so if you do an apprenticeship it gives you the opportunity to get good jobs, rewarding jobs, highly skilled jobs that can take you anywhere in the world.

 

I noticed in the Economist magazine in January this year they are saying that in the U.S. the actual increases in wages are going to the skilled trades area away from the tertiary educated area. So these are issues we need to have a good look at.

 

We want to get more young people in because it’s good for them, it’s good for the economy, it’s good for business, apprenticeships are really important and we want to invest in them for the future.

 

REPORTER: What do we risk if we don’t increase the number of apprentices that are hiring?

 

CAMERON: Well we risk a situation where we can’t meet the skill needs of the country. I came here in 1973 as a skilled migrant and we want to have less reliance on bringing skilled migrants in. We want to make sure that we do give young people an opportunity to get a trade and to get a future job that can feed their family, give them opportunities for the long term and apprenticeships do that. I think this whole attitude that you can only get a good job if you go to university needs to be challenged.

 

It has to be that the skills system, the trades system and the traineeships system are valued and seen as an important way to get a job for the future and have a long term skilled job.