Federal Government Ignores Northern Territory Skills Shortage

Member for Lingiari and Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs Warren Snowdon said today the Federal Government had yet to take real notice of the serious skill shortages in Northern Australia.

Mr Snowdon said bringing on funding for Australian Technical Colleges to this financial year was a move that missed the point entirely.

'The fact is that this won't do anything to provide real vocational education and training across Northern Australia and particularly in Lingiari,' he said.

'The people of the rural and remote regions of the North – the pastoral families, the mining communities and the Aboriginal communities - have been completely by-passed.

'They've been crying out for home-grown skilled people so they can build sustainable economies and they've been ignored by successive Federal Education and Training Ministers.

'They can't get jobs because many haven't had a sound education and they still have little or no access to vocational or higher education

'The extent and nature of the shortages is not news; it's been around for a decade and the government is still wilfully ignoring it.

'Unlike Nelson at Trafalgar, this Government won't win the skills battle by turning a blind eye to the facts

'The needs of North can only be met by good research, which we've had, sound planning, which we haven't and the allocation of appropriate resources, which we're still waiting on.

'No Federal Minister over the past 10 years seems intellectually capable of grasping this simple equation,' Mr Snowdon said.

2007-02-07