Gee I wonder who made advanced education and training harder to get and too expensive for Aussie youth ....
ABC Online; Prime Minister John Howard says Australia's education and training system needs to be reformed to address the nation's skills shortages.
Mr Howard has told a conference in Sydney that the nation will need a more skilled work force to compete and prosper in the coming decades.
He says Australia needs to improve the basic skills of its work force, raise apprenticeship completion rates and increase opportunities for people to gain higher skills.
Mr Howard says the Government will consider a call by the Australia Industry Group (Ai Group) for $1 billion over the next three years to retrain workers.
"It's easy for other people to call on the Government for the expenditure of money," he said.
"I think they're trying to make a contribution and we'll examine the paper that's been put out by the AiG."
The Ai Group wants a national skills fund to boost training and it wants the small- and medium-sized businesses to be able to claim a tax deduction of more than 100 per cent for training programs.
Economic strength
Mr Howard says it should not be forgotten that a skills shortage has been caused by the state of the economy.
"The high demand for skilled workers in Australia is the flip side of an economy now in its 16th year of growth," he said.
But Federal Opposition Leader Kim Beazley says it is too late for the Prime Minister to be discussing the skills shortage.
Mr Beazley, speaking at a Labor business forum in Sydney, says it is hypocritical for Mr Howard to talk of skills.
"John Howard is the problem on skills in the Australian community," he said.
"It's he who has dropped the ball on skills, it is he who has created the skills shortage and 10 years on it's too late now for him to be saying he's part of the solution."
