Labor breaks another promise with Gympie Trade Training Centre
11th January, 2012
Confirmation that only one Trade Training Centre will be constructed in Gympie is yet another broken promise from the Rudd / Gillard Labor Governments, Federal Member for Wide Bay Warren Truss said today.Mr Truss said he welcomed this week’s advice of $5.25 million of Federal Government funding but the project is well short of what the Labor Government promised at the 2007 Federal election.
“During the 2007 election campaign, when Prime Minister Gillard was Labor’s education spokesperson, she promised that a Federal Labor Government would fund the construction of a Trade Training Centre in each of Australia’s 2,650 secondary schools.
“Now, instead of providing each of the Cooloola region’s secondary schools with their own Trade Training Centre, Ms Gillard has broken her promise and will only provide one, which will be expected to service Gympie State High School, Mary Valley State College, St Patrick’s College, Tin Can Bay P-10 State School, Victory College Cooloola Christian College, and James Nash State High School,” Mr Truss said.
The Trade Training Centre will be principally located at James Nash State High School and has a budgeted cost of up to $5,250,000.
“I support greater investment in skills development to help young people reach their potential, but Labor has been dishonest about its offer to schools and what it will actually deliver.
“It adds to Labor’s long litany of broken promises to schools including:
• a laptop computer for every year 9 to 12 student — promise broken and now students only have shared access to a computer (the program is 200,000 computers behind schedule and more than $1 billion over budget);
• free access to school laptops — promise broken with some schools charging parents more than $300 to use the computers;
• computers would be connected 100 megabits / second fibre cable — promise broken with only 10 schools in Australia connected;
• 260 new child care centres for primary schools and TAFEs — promise broken with the program cut to just 38; and
• a national curriculum would be implemented for the 2011 school year — promise broken with most states commencing in 2013 or later.”
Mr Truss said he hoped the Gympie Trade Training Centre did not have the same fate as the Centre in Maryborough, which sat idle for almost a year after it was finished. Of the promised 2650 Trade Training Centres, only 111 were operating at the end of last year.
“Unfortunately the Trade Training Centre program was more about making a big announcement, and in Maryborough’s case the Government had no clear direction about how the program was to be managed in the longer term,” Mr Truss said.
“I hope that the Government has learned from that experience and that the Centre in Gympie is fully utilized to provide students with vital skills to enhance their career opportunities.”
