Jonathan Balfour, from Westmeadows, will compete in Landscape Gardening in the competition and will join twenty five other young Australian's representing our nation in the skills of their vocational fields.
“Today I want to congratulate Jonathan for his success in being selected to represent Australia next month at the 38th WorldSkills International Competition which is being held in Helsinki, Finland.” said Ms Vamvakinou, Federal Member for Calwell
“I wish Jonathan and his team mate the best of luck, I’m sure that he will do our community proud. Jonathan’s achievement is a great example to other young people in Calwell of what hard work and dedication can achieve.”
“Like the members of the Hillcrest Secondary College community, where Jonathan went to secondary school, I will he hoping he win’s a gold medal in Helsinki.”
“Jonathan is a shining example of how young people in our community can get a great start in life from apprenticeship training. Sadly though the number of people completing apprenticeship in the Calwell electorate has plummeted.”
Maria said that Federal Government figures reveal that the number of people finishing a trade’s apprenticeship has dropped from 270 in 1998 to 180 in 2004.
“This massive drop of 33% in the number of apprentices finishing a traditional trade’s qualification is an outrage when local businesses are crying out for qualified tradespeople.”
