Assistant Minister Kearney interview on ABC Drive with Prue Bentley

E&OE transcript

HOST, PRUE BENTLEY: One of the biggest barriers to taking up an apprenticeship, and I have heard you loud and clear when we talk about this, you have told me time and again it's the cost of living. Having tools, having transport and living expenses on an apprentice wage has for a long time been highlighted as a major stumbling block. For the past six months, though, apprentices who start in a housing or construction course have been eligible at a federal level for $10,000 in government support. And it turns out Victorians have been pretty enthusiastic about, it taking up the scheme more than any other state and territory. Ged Kearney is the Assistant Minister for Social Services and the Prevention of Family Violence. Ged Kearney, good afternoon.

ASSISTANT MINISTER GED KEARNEY: Good afternoon. Thanks for having me on.

PRUE BENTLEY: I do want to get onto that, but before we start, obviously the big story has been fuel prices and availability and cost of living. Has the Government been too slow to act on making sure supplies get where they need to be?

GED KEARNEY: Well, I think it's important to understand that supplies have been coming in this whole time. We haven't had a decrease in supply. We understand that people are very concerned with what's happening in the Middle East at the moment, but at the moment we can really safely and honestly say that our supplies have not been held up. So, we do have a goodly amount of petrol and diesel in the country, but of course the situation is very volatile and we do understand that people are worried and that people are, you know, buying petrol just on the, in case, and we totally get that. And, but I just want to assure people that the Federal Government, I just heard the State Minister then, we are working incredibly hard to make sure right around the country that we get distribution right and that people don't run out of petrol where possible. And I know this has been particularly worrying for the rural and regional areas where we have heard some towns have actually experienced some panic buying, which I say I understand, and unfortunately their fuel has run out in those areas, but we are doing everything we can to get that supply back up.

PRUE BENTLEY: The Victorian Farmers Federation, indeed today, has asked people in metropolitan areas to reduce driving to save fuel. Is fuel rationing on the cards at all? Is it a lever that your government is ever willing to pull?

GED KEARNEY: No, we have not been discussing rationing. As I said, at this point in time, we do have fuel coming into the country. What we're really focusing on, Prue, is making sure that people aren't hiking up prices and really trying to get the message out to - or taking advantage of the situation by price gouging, which I'm sure some of your members have seen the cost of fuel, you know, go up dramatically - and trying to get the message out there that we are doing everything we can to make sure that our supplies are adequate. And I think they're the things that we are focusing on right now. The Ministers, all our Ministers, Chris Bowen and Jim Chalmers, they have been working, I guarantee, around the clock to make sure that Australians can get fuel if they need it.

PRUE BENTLEY: It's going to be a rocky few months, maybe even the rest of the year, no matter what happens in the Middle East. And with that conflict, of course, the RBA has just increased interest rates today. That's going to put huge pressure on families, isn't it?

GED KEARNEY: Yes, it's disappointing. This, of course, is a global issue and, you know, the Middle East situation has made inflation worse. It was already on the high side, but certainly there are global challenges that are impacting that. So, we have been working really hard since we came into government to get inflation down. Your listeners will remember with the previous government, it was up higher than six per cent, and we certainly have worked hard to get that down. But it is disappointing when we see the Reserve Bank take decisions to increase interest rates. We know that that puts a lot of pressure on households, particularly if you have a mortgage, of course. So, we've been doing everything we can to try to help with cost of living this government, and I'm hoping that people are starting to see the benefit of that. You know, certainly things like cutting the costs of medicines, particularly for pensioners, cutting the cost of going to a doctor, cutting HECS bills by 20 per cent for some of our young people, increasing bulk billing tax cuts. There's two more tax cuts coming online in the very near future and we think that that will go a long way to helping people, making sure wages are keeping up with all of this.

PRUE BENTLEY: Ged Kearney, just on that with the fuel and a lot of people pointed this out today. One of the mechanisms that the Federal Government does have at its disposal is the fuel excise, which is currently at about 50 cents per litre. We have seen that lever pulled in the past, in 2022, it was halved. Is that an option here to reduce pressure on households?

GED KEARNEY: Yes, I understand that people would think that would be a good idea, but that is, as we know, a short-term measure that has been introduced before, and then, and then stopped. What we really need to do here is make sure that in the long term we can actually make sure that we have good supplies, that there isn't price gouging, that the ACCC, we've tasked them with making sure there's no price gouging and my goodness, we've doubled the penalties. They've hauled the petrol suppliers and the retailers in today to explain what's going on and Jim Chalmers has said throw the book at them basically, if they're doing anything wrong. So, we think that the long-term answers to smooth the cost out over time is the best way to go about this.

PRUE BENTLEY: Let's talk about apprenticeships because I know that this is a topic that's very close to your heart. You have, you've enacted a program, it was about six months ago or so, and there some substantial supports for new apprentices coming into the system. What have you seen?

GED KEARNEY: Well, yes, I think you said in your introduction, and you absolutely spot on, Prue, that often doing an apprenticeship is cost prohibitive for many young people. We always think about apprentices as 16, 15, 16 year old kids still living at home with mum and dad. But of course that just isn't the case anymore and we want more, and particularly we want more apprentices in the housing construction area. And so we introduced a scheme where apprentices could get support, financial support, up to $10,000. And this is to help them buy tools. It's to help with, well, with anything that they like, really, over the term of their apprenticeship. And we've also given $5,000 to employers who take on an apprenticeship under this program. This means that financially it's much more appealing to particularly young people. And Victoria, I'm very proud to say, has led the way. We've had nearly three and a half thousand young people or people take up housing construction apprenticeships since the program began. And this is great news because as everybody knows, we need more houses, we need to increase the supply of housing. And workforce shortages has been a really inhibiting factor for that.

PRUE BENTLEY: So, they're what, only about six months into their apprenticeship at the moment. Do you expect to see retention in these apprenticeships because of those, that money?

GED KEARNEY: Yeah, well, we do. I mean, you add to this the fact that a lot of these courses are free because of our free TAFE program. We are seeing across the board with our free TAFE program, a vast increase in completions, which we're really very pleased about. So, we hope that we'll have a few chippies and sparkies and a few more plumbers and glaziers and plasterers coming online in the next couple of years, which will really go to help us meet our targets for building new houses.

PRUE BENTLEY: Is that program closed now or if somebody's listening to this and thinking, maybe I would like to have a bit of a career change. Is that program still open?

GED KEARNEY: Yes, it is, it is still open. And I don't have the exact details here right now on how to apply for it, but certainly if they contact their local TAFE, they'll be able to find out how to access the program.

PRUE BENTLEY: It's called the Key Apprenticeship Program.

GED KEARNEY: Yes, the Key Apprenticeship Program, or KAP for short, with a K. And it's really a great way to encourage people to do a trade in housing construction.

PRUE BENTLEY: Well, let's hope that they do flow through and we're getting more builds. Ged Kearney, thank you very much.

GED KEARNEY: My great pleasure.