Trades training faces axe
AUSTRALIA’S trade training centre program in high schools faces Tony Abbott’s budget axe to pay for his Gonski education funding backflip.
As Treasurer Joe Hockey prepares to unveil a horror budget update on Tuesday that will confirm a massive blowout in the deficit of up to $ 50 billion and rising unemployment, the Abbott Government will shut down plans for trades training centres in schools.
The decision to end the program will deliver a $ 400 million spending cut — one-third of the cash needed to pay for the $ 1.2 billion Gonski schools funding backflip for Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory.
The program offers vocational training at high school for Years 9 to 12.
Existing trades training centres will stay open and 137 new centres announced in August to service more than 200 schools will be built.
However, the Treasurer will announce on Tuesday that the Government is ending Labor’s $ 2.5 billion scheme for future projects.
The decision to slash trades training is a political gamble after Holden announced it would exit Australia by 2017.
The Prime Minister yesterday described the Govern- ment’s flirtation with keeping Labor’s $ 1.2 billion cut to schools in WA, Queensland and the NT a ‘‘snafu’’, conceding he learned that promises must be honoured in spirit, not just the letter of the law.
The budget razor gang demanded that Education Minister Christopher Pyne find savings in the portfolio to cover the cost of honouring Labor’s $1.2 billion funding offer to WA, Queensland and the Northern Territory.
The Government decided the solution is terminating future trades training centres.
Coalition sources suggested Childcare Minister Sussan Ley’s portfolio was also the target of cuts in the Mid-Year Economic Fiscal Outlook to be announced on Tuesday.
Kevin Rudd and Bill Shorten announced $200 million in new projects under the trades scheme in August. These projects will be honoured.
At the time, Mr Pyne released a statement titled ‘‘Labor lies’’, stating that ‘‘the Coalition has no plans to shut down any of the Trade Training Centres that are in operation or cancel any projects that have been approved under the latest funding round.’’
Opposition industry spokesman Kim Carr said the decision to axe future centres was a disgrace.
‘‘ They don’t have any Holden jobs and now we don’t have any training,’’ he said. ‘‘Once again it’s blue-collar workers copping it in the neck from this Government.’’