Labor failing to skill Australians in Moncrieff

Angie Bell MP
Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education
Shadow Minister for Youth
Federal Member for Moncrieff

MEDIA RELEASE
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12 February 2024

New data proves that despite promising to skill more Australians than the Coalition, Anthony Albanese’s Labor Government is overseeing a wholesale collapse in the number of apprentices and trainees in every state and in almost every electorate across the nation including in our backyard.

This new data demonstrates Labor’s much vaunted Fee-Free TAFE skills policy has comprehensively failed to maintain the number of apprentices and trainees taking up training with numbers collapsing across the Gold Coast.

After just one year of Labor, the Moncrieff electorate has seen a 14.66% drop in the number of apprentices and trainees taking up a new trade or learning a new skill. This compares with the final year of Coalition Government that saw a 41.05% increase in apprentices and trainees.

Trade apprentices in-training hit record highs in the final months of the Coalition Government and as of June 2022 there were 429,000 apprentices and trainees in-training, 25 per cent more than at the same time in 2021. After just one year of Labor this number has now fallen to 377,645. That means there are over 50,000 less apprentices and trainees in training today than when Labor took office, a loss of one in ten.

Member for Moncrieff and Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education and Youth, Angie Bell said Labor’s failures under Anthony Albanese would hit our local community hard.

“We’ve seen a 14.66% decrease in the number of apprentices and trainees taking up a new trade or learning a new skill in Labor’s first year alone.”

“The data is clear, despite all of Labor’s promises to skill Australians, their policies are failing and there are over 50,000 less apprentices and trainees today than when Labor took office.”

“The bottom line is that we need more apprentices and trainees in our community not less. Labor promised they would skill more Australians, but their programs are not delivering, this is a total disaster brought to you by the Australian Labor Party.”

Deputy Leader of the Opposition and Shadow Minister for Skills and Training, Sussan Ley said this was a devastating blow for Labor’s economic credibility and would have serious impacts on Australia’s economy.

“Whether it is Anthony Albanese or Jim Chalmers, Education Minister Jason Clare or Skills Minister Brendan O’Connor, right across Labor’s key leadership group there have been massive drops in the number of apprentices or trainees in their own electorates.” she said.

“This puts Australia’s economy in a weaker position and brings into question our capacity to deliver on national priorities like AUKUS, the infrastructure pipeline and the housing we need to meet Labor’s out of control migration settings.”

The official government data shows that in the final year of the Coalition Government in-training numbers increased in every electorate bar one, while under the first year of Labor’s skills policies the number of apprentices and trainees dropped in every electorate except four. This means under the Coalition’s final year of government apprentices and trainees increased across 99.3 per cent of electorates whereas under Labor’s first year of government numbers dropped across 97.3 per cent of electorates, a damning statistic.

Labor came to power promising it would solve skills shortages and deliver more opportunities for Australians to get into training, but the reality is they have delivered a collapse in the number of Australians taking up training.

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