“That ICPA (Aust) advocates to the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations for financial supports to Australian Apprentices who relocate from rural and remote regions to commence their employment and trade training.”
The process of relocating away from family and community support, often for the first time is a financially and emotionally difficult time for young apprentices. These young people need to set up a place of residence, live independently including undertaking activities such as shopping and household management for the first time while also commencing a new occupation. Coupled with this, the on-going living costs and that apprentices are on very low wages, often with minimal financial assistance.
Trade pathways are often avoided due to the financial barries that prevent many rural and remotes students from commencing or continuing along this pathway. It was disheartening for a branch family to learn late last year that their son was overlooked for an apprentice position as the employers knew the relocation requirements would make it too difficult for him to sustain the apprenticeship.
Access supports such as Tertiary Access Payment (TAP) are available to tertiary students to offset the high costs of relocation. Despite ICPA (Aust) requests to the relevant department and ministers, Australian Apprentices remain ineligible under the current criteria.
Case Study
My son lives in remote NSW 125km from Bourke in far western NSW. Upon completion of his HSC last year, he decided to apply for apprenticeships. He applied for an apprenticeship based in Wollongong where he had a successful first interview. He was not given a second interview and upon enquiring as to how to improve for his next application he was told that he was a very strong candidate, but they were concerned about his ability to relocate so far from home due to affordability, as the opportunity was 947km away from home.
He successfully gained an apprenticeship in Dubbo which is 500km from our home. He would not have been able to do this financially except that we have a small block of land 20km from Dubbo that has a relocatable basic building on it where he can live. There are no services connected (power or town water). He spends $120 per week on fuel for a generator to get power and by the time he pays $100 for fuel for his ute to go to work and food for the week, there is very little left over. Due to low rainfall, 2 weeks ago he ran out of rainwater, and we had to get a truck in, to resupply water (a cost of $450 which we paid for as he could not afford to).
He has also had the costs of buying tools for his apprenticeship and has spent over $2500 in the first 3 months on them. He does not have Internet and has limited mobile service where he is located. We have helped through buying household appliances and furnishings to make his situation more comfortable, however cannot afford to support him more than this due to still having twins in Year 8 away at boarding school that we are paying for. There is no way he could have afforded to relocate to Dubbo and rent commercially and still have enough money to buy the basics.
He luckily has a very good employer who helped him get to medical treatment last week when he was sick and also paid for his medication that he needed.
He has met with his ASSN but has had no information about applying for LAFHA despite them being told of his home address. He has only been informed of Apprentice Training Support Payments.
