CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS

Mr GREGG (Deakin) (16:03): To mark Skills Week and TAFE Day, I had the opportunity to visit Swinburne's Croydon campus and spend some time with apprentices training there. Some were people I was meeting for the first time; others I've had the pleasure of meeting before and seeing progress through their training. We had some genuinely substantive conversations because completing an apprenticeship is a significant achievement.

But we shouldn't pretend it's always an easy road. There are real challenges along the way. There are financial pressures and the challenge of balancing work, study and life.

There are questions about the nature and continuity of on-the-job training and supervision. And there are challenges for employers too, particularly the small businesses that make an enormous commitment when they take on an apprentice. Those experiences deserve our attention.

That's why the support we provide matters, from free TAFE to financial support for apprentices and employers, and to the broader work of making sure more people can start an apprenticeship and, importantly, make it all the way through with the skills they need in industry. But what struck me again at Croydon was the opportunity in front of these young people.

A qualification as a sparky, plumber or carpenter can take you almost anywhere. The sky is the limit—big jobs, small jobs, around Australia and sometimes around the world. It's a genuinely exciting set of careers, and I can't wait to see what they're able to achieve.

The qualification is just the beginning, not the destination. I see the same sense of possibility every time I visit Ringwood Training, which I have had the privilege of doing many times over the last few years. It is a really a remarkable institution, an arm of Ringwood Secondary College, one of our great public schools providing nationally recognised vocational training to school students, apprentices and people who've already left school.

And there's real breadth in what they do. They train young people in automotive, from their first introduction to the trade through to apprenticeships in light vehicle mechanical technology. They teach engineering and fabrication, developing the welding, machining and metalworking skills that are needed across our manufacturing industry.

And there's more that they can build on. There's great opportunity for them to expand to electric vehicles, as well. I'm keen to support them however I can in getting access to the cars and technology through government and through industry contacts, because we really do need to be readying these fantastic young people for the jobs of the future.

Then there's MEGT, based in the centre of my electorate, doing another essential part of the job: connecting apprentices with employers and helping make those relationships work. Across all three, what I've come away with is an enormous sense of pride and gratitude: pride in the apprentices who are backing themselves, learning a skill and building the future; gratitude to the teachers, trainers and employers who invest their time and experience in the next generation; and gratitude to the apprentices and employers themselves who speak candidly with me about their experience and about what is working, what isn't working and what we still need to do better.

Those conversations matter. Our job in government is to listen to them, to keep improving the system around them and to make sure, when someone chooses an apprenticeship, that they have every opportunity not just to start but to finish it and build something remarkable from it. To every apprentice I met: thank you for your time, your candour and your commitment to your trade.

You should be proud of what you're doing. I certainly am.