Group Training Australia (GTA) is urging both Liberal and Labor parties to put skills shortages, as well as training, on the 2004 Federal election campaign agenda, as two separate but equally important issues.

GTA welcomes the fact that in this first week of the election campaign, the Federal Government's first television advertisement featured the importance of apprenticeships. GTA also commends Shadow Training Minister Albanese's continued promotion of Labor's Youth Guarantee that is aimed at addressing significant disadvantage amongst Australia's youth.

However, these attempts have dealt with issues of training. GTA has identified the issue of skill shortage as a stand-alone issue and one that needs to be addressed directly by both sides. It simply cannot be an "add on" to existing training or employment announcements.

Jim Barron, CEO of GTA, said on the matter, "Whilst some small steps have been made to address training by both parties thus far in the campaign, the issue of skills shortages needs its own platform and strategy.

Otherwise, we can never hope to reconcile the increasing gap between the 170,000 Australians leaving the workforce and only 40,000 Australians entering it in the coming years*, and this is just one example in the manufacturing industry. Many more industries face anticipated shortages of similar proportions."

National skill shortages exist in every key traditional trade and indeed vacancies in these trades have increased by 18% over the past year. The situation is deteriorating yet the Federal election campaign is yet to deliver any substantive policy action from either side.

GTA believes addressing skills shortage is as vital as any major economic policy. Being the single largest group of employers taking on apprentices and trainees across the country, the group-training network is looking for solutions from both Government and Opposition. GTA would like the policy response to not only address funding levels, but also Commonwealth and State structural issues, industry involvement, schools interaction, building a training culture and tackling community attitudes towards the trades.

 * Source: Manufacturing Learning Australia