LNP pledge tech college and commonwealth suppported places for JCU Cairns
Opposition leader Peter Dutton defended his migration cuts and their impacts on the Far North’s farm labourer workforce while making education and training announcements in Cairns.
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Opposition leader Peter Dutton defended his migration cuts and their impacts on the Far North’s farm labourer workforce while making education and training announcements in Cairns.
The LNP leader toured the Leichhardt electorate on Saturday with local candidate Jeremy Neal.
Mr Dutton pledged an additional 25 Commonwealth Supported Places for James Cook University’s medicine program in Cairns.
The announcement was swiftly welcomed by JCU vice chancellor professor Simon Biggs who said the university’s graduates were “three times more likely to practice in regional areas and twice as likely to practice in remote areas.”
“Providing an additional 25 Commonwealth-funded places for medicine will support the university to address this skills shortage in Cairns, which increases equity and reduces disadvantage,” he said.
Mr Dutton also pledged $19m for Tec-NQ to expand its footprint and establish a new Australian Technical College in Cairns – one of 12 to be built around the country.
“It’s not in place of TAFE … so it really is targeted at giving young people more choice from Year 10 onwards,” Mr Dutton said.
The funding will go towards rebooting a former Howard-era policy where the speciality schools allowed students in years 10 to 12 to enrol in apprenticeship or traineeship based courses while also studying academic courses which allowed them to obtain both a Year 12 Certificate and trade accreditation.
The technical college promise followed a pledge Mr Dutton made for $33.8m towards housing trunk infrastructure at Mount Peter where the Opposition leader stood by previously announced cuts to migration.
Cairns-based Labor senator Nita Green claimed local businesses feared the LNP’s migration cuts would disadvantage the region’s skilled workforce.
She claimed the Coalition had only outlined 81,250 in total cuts, 138,580 short of their target.
“Peter Dutton needs to explain to the people of the Far North where his cuts will come from,” she said.
“Will he cut temporary skilled migration – essential workers who are coming to this country to build houses? Will he be the first political leader in Australian history to cut tourist numbers?
“Will he tell the regional fruit growers and reef tourism operators that he’s cutting working holiday makers?”
Mr Dutton refused to categorically rule out cuts to migrants with skills in hospitality, but conceded he “needed to get the balance right.”
“We’ll still have plenty of plenty of people available to do the work in the tourism industry and hospitality, in retail and but we’re not going to lock Aussie kids out of houses,” he said.
“We’ve also said to pensioners and to veterans who are on a pension as well, that you can work more hours and that you won’t lose your pension as a result.”
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Originally published as LNP pledge tech college and commonwealth suppported places for JCU Cairns
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