"PM: We're still waiting!"

MELBOURNE – November 15, 2010: The future of automotive industry training in Australia is under threat.

In a Review of the Government's decision to hand over automotive training to the Manufacturing Skills Council, former Victorian Premier, Steve Bracks, recommended that the Manufacturing Skills Council Australia (MSA) create an autonomous body for automotive training, as a wholly owned subsidiary of MSA.

"Ultimately, MSA still refuses to give the industry an autonomous body recommended by the Honorable Steve Bracks and directed by the then Minister, and now Prime Minister, Julia Gillard," VACC Executive Director, David Purchase, told Australian Automotive magazine

"Without training, this country's skilled Automotive Industry would cease to exist within a generation. Yet, the Government still refuses to place automotive training in the hands of those best placed to manage it: the Automotive Industry," Mr Purchase said.

The Australian Automotive Industry is a nation-wide industry of 100,000 businesses which create 400,000 jobs and contribute $145 billion to the Australian economy. It is a specialised industry with specialised knowledge and skills, and over the past 100 years the industry has built a formidable bank of knowledge and skills to pass on to the 31,500 apprentices and trainees trained each year.

"For an industry, which contributes so greatly to this nation, to be considered not important enough to have its own Training Body is insulting," said Mr Purchase.

"The Automotive Industry has not had its own Training Body since Skills Councils were introduced in 2003. The Review of Australia's Automotive Industry (also known as the Bracks Review) was in 2008. MSA has asked for feedback: VACC has provided feedback. Automotive Industry stakeholders have had enough of waiting and now want the Federal Government to act," VACC General Manager, Training, Leyla Yilmaz, said.

"We are engaging with MSA in good faith, but note the pace of proceedings. It has been almost a year now and we still don't have anything.

"In our view, MSA has shown a lack of goodwill in creating an industry training body. Stakeholders have asked the Government to urgently intervene to deliver on its promise," Ms Yilmaz said.