TRAINEES AND APPRENTICES MINIMUM WAGE
Page: 18006
The Hon. IAN WEST: My question is directed to the Minister for Industrial Relations. Can the Minister inform the House about plans to lower minimum wages for trainees and apprentices?
The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: I thank the Hon. Ian West for his ongoing interest in industrial affairs and the future skills of the nation. The Australian Government has announced—and members have seen the publicity—that it will "remove the barriers that restrict opportunities for young Australians to enter an apprenticeship". Honourable members can probably guess the barrier that the Commonwealth has focused on: it is wages. And for the lowest paid the Government has again indicated it believes they are simply paid too much. The Prime Minister has listed his first initiative under a unitary industrial relations system, which is to create a new special minimum wage for apprentices and trainees.
The Hon. Melinda Pavey: What a good idea!
The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: Mr Howard claims that his special minimum wage would ensure that trainees and apprentices are competitive in the labour market.
The Hon. Melinda Pavey: What are you doing about the crisis?
The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: Who will be the next group of workers to get a special rate of pay to make them competitive? The Hon. Melinda Pavey is a capitalist who does not believe in the profit motive. This is further evidence of John Howard's true workplace reform agenda—to slash wages and conditions and, of course, pick on the most vulnerable in society. We know that if the Commonwealth submissions to the national wage case had been accepted, minimum wages would be approximately $50 lower than they are at the moment. The Prime Minister has at last identified that there is a skills shortage.
The Hon. Melinda Pavey: What are you going to do about the skills shortage?
The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: One would have thought from the way the Commonwealth Government has carried on with respect to industrial matters in the last year that he had not realised there was a skills shortage. He has now discovered it, but his solution is the wrong one. The New South Wales Government has led the way in promoting apprenticeships and school-based traineeships. Currently, almost 70,000 school students in this State are enrolled in high-quality vocational programs as part of their Higher School Certificate [HSC]. This is what we are doing about it, Melinda, if you had actually taken the trouble to look at the question. That is one-third of all year 11 and 12 students, more than any other State or Territory, and we compare favourably with any jurisdiction in the Western World.
These courses provide credit points towards the HSC while a student is at school and count towards a traineeship or an apprenticeship once a student leaves school. Many of these students go on to gain full qualifications in trade-related occupations such as automotive, hospitality and manufacturing, just to name a few. Of these 70,000, over 1,400 HSC students are in school-based part-time traineeships. Students doing this are actually employed in part-time traineeships while still at school. They have both on-the-job and classroom-based commitments to the traineeship. The vast majority of trainees and all apprentices begin their formal training in a full-time capacity once they leave school.
The New South Wales Government's approach to vocational education and training in schools keeps students' options open. Students can work towards an industry qualification, the HSC and, if they so choose, keep open the option to obtain a university admission index. This provides maximum opportunities once they leave school. The Commonwealth's answer is, of course, to slash wages for young people and allow apprenticeships to continue indefinitely. As if that would encourage anyone to seek an apprenticeship, given that the overwhelming evidence is that the decline in apprenticeship recruitment is due to concerns about wage levels and security and continuity of the apprenticeship!
Apprentices are already among those most at risk from exploitative Australian workplace agreements [AWA]. In the last financial year the Commonwealth approved AWAs covering 16,700 people under 21 years, including 9,300 under 18 years and nearly 700 under 15 years. The recent young people and work survey conducted by the New South Wales Office of Industrial Relations shows that young people are largely unaware of their rights and are vulnerable to exploitation.