E&OE..........................................................................................................................
Thank you very much to Mr McLelland and Mrs Henderson. To Mr and Mrs
Durham, Mr and Mrs Herbert; to Mr Kevin Sheedy, ladies and gentlemen.
Can I start my remarks by congratulating all of the young men and
women here today who will receive awards and recognition as a token
of your qualities, as a token of your professionalism and as a proper
recognition by your peers of your particular skills and your specialities.
It is for me quite an honour to address this awards ceremony and to
take the opportunity of saying what an enormous store the Government
places on apprenticeships and traineeships within the Australian community.
I endorse in the full the remarks that were made by Mr Durham about
the responsibility of all people in Government to ensure that the
maximum employment and apprenticeship opportunities are available
to young people.
I am particularly proud to say in that context that in the time that
the Government has been in office, the number of apprenticeships and
traineeships available will have risen from about 143,000 just over
two years ago, to in the order of 200,000 towards the end of this
year, and a result of our new apprenticeship and training system,
we have placed a much greater emphasis on improving the opportunities
for people - for men and women - in apprenticeships throughout all
areas of the Australian economy and throughout all areas of Australian
industry.
We have endeavoured to produce within the community a new ethic, a
new approach, a new era in relation to training and the options that
are available particularly to young people. We have, as I've
just mentioned, placed a greater emphasis on apprenticeships and traineeships
and we've tried to model those apprenticeships and traineeships
to suit the needs and the convenience of individual employers and
their employees, rather than trying to mould the desires and the needs
of individuals to a preconceived set notion of what ought to amount
to the right way of going about apprenticeships.
In addition to that, we have in recent weeks introduced a new system
of youth allowances which has profoundly altered the incentive that
used to exist under the old system away from that old system, where
the incentive was really to go on unemployment benefits rather than
to remain at school or to go into some kind of training. And the way
in which we have altered the system now means that there is a much
stronger incentive for young people to undertake training and far
less of an incentive for young people to go on unemployment benefits.
We have also introduced a work-for-the-dole scheme, whereby the community
in implementing the principle of what we call mutual obligation. And
that is if somebody can't get work in Australia, a decent society
has an obligation to give those people a decent level of social security
support, but it also has the right to ask of those people if it is
reasonable that they provide something in return for that social security
support.
We've also integrated into the apprenticeship system the notion
of school to work transition, and a number of the young men and women
who are receiving awards today are examples of that. And it is very
important that we see a greater connection and continuum between what
people learn at school and the skills that are required when they
leave school and enter the workforce. It is a trite expression for
any public figure to say today that we live in a world that is undergoing
great change. It is undergoing great change and whether we like it
or not, and there are some in our community who don't like it
- and I understand why they may not like it - but whether we like
it or not, every nation and every society must adjust itself to change.
There are some things in our society that quite properly we not only
want to hang on to but we should hang on to. As an Australian community,
we have certain received values that bind our society together. Those
values of decency, of recognising the individual worth of people irrespective
of their ethnic background, of encouraging tolerance and respect for
difference, of recognising that mateship and equality of treatment
have always been part of the Australian ethic, and hanging on to many
of those traditional values and attitudes that are so important to
keeping our society together. But hand-in-hand with that we must recognise
that we do live in a globalised world economy and unless Australia
competes, unless Australia is efficient, unless Australia's industries
are efficient, unless our training is modern and our training methods
are efficient and up-to-date we're not going to provide the jobs
and opportunities that particularly our young people will need as
the years go by.
That is why taking a few moments off for all of us, and particularly
the parents and friends of those who are receiving awards today, to
honour their abilities, to pay respects to the industry with which
they are associated, and to thank them for the contribution that they
are making to contemporary Australian society is so important.
I think part of a civilised society is to recognise and to honour
achievement and to honour success and today I know will be a source
of particular pride to the mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters
and friends of those who are going to receive awards. And I want all
of those people to savour this occasion and to enjoy the moment, because
you have played a role as we all know, as parents, as we live through
school and university examinations and other examinations with our
children, we all understand what it is like and we all have that great
sense of exhilaration when what our child or our brother or sister
has done is publicly recognised, and that is what today's ceremony
and awards presentation is all about. It is about recognising particular
skill and particular achievement. It is about honouring the importance
within our society of stable levels of employment. It is recognising
the importance of skilled trades within our community and it is also
recognising the restoration of the importance within modern Australia
of apprenticeships and traineeships.
To be quite frank, we went through a period in this country where
the importance of those things were down-graded. We became obsessed
as a society with university education to the detriment of other methods
of education and the other pathways to fulfilling employment. I'm
very happy to say that in recent years there's been a re-awakening
within the community of the importance of apprenticeships and traineeships
and a growing recognition that a holistic approach to learning and
education and instruction within the Australian community requires
a renewed emphasis on the sort of contributions that are going to
be honoured today.
Ladies and gentlemen it is a particular privilege for me as Prime
Minister to be here today. The association that is staging today's
presentation ceremony is of course of very very long standing, as
Mr Durham mentioned. It predates the formation of most professional
and trade organisations within Australia. And those who receive the
awards today are joining a very long and distinguished list of Australians
who've gone before them within this particular calling. So I
congratulate again all of those young men and women who are receiving
recognition today. I thank you for the contribution that you are making
towards a positive image of the modern Australia. I thank your association
for the contribution that it is making to the Australian economy and
I wish all of you well in your future professional careers, and in
your personal lives I wish you great success, good health and great
happiness.
Thank you.
[Ends]