Every job in a regional town is important; we've heard our politicians advocate on the behalf of their regional electorates many times and so it is particularly aggravating to see the situation in which apprentice Tom Burn finds himself.
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Tom is no ordinary apprentice having been named school-based apprentice of the year for the Illawarra and South East NSW region in 2018.
He wants to train for a career in aircraft maintenance which is possible because we're fortunate to have an airport and a busy aircraft maintenance company operating out of the airport.
It's a job that is on the national skills shortage list, something the Australian government compiles, and Tom was offered an apprenticeship - that wonderful mix of on the job training coupled with theoretical learning at a TAFE.
I'm not sure how many more "regional jobs and growth" boxes this situation could tick. But instead of being able to attend a TAFE a mere four hours away, Tom must travel seven hours and even that is in doubt because of the delays brought about by the debate over whether Victoria can train someone from NSW.
Did someone say 21st century?
Australia is a big country and it needs big ideas and big thinking to move it along.
People have talked endlessly about the need to create jobs in regional areas so that young people don't have to leave.
Forget the career, we haven't even managed to get out of the starting blocks if we can't organise our training opportunities for young people better than this.
Enticing people to move to regional areas will never be successful we we can't manage to provide educational pathways for them and their children.
We need some cross-border co-operation here, a little more oversight by those involved in tertiary education and a damn sight less red tape.
