But the Turnbull government claims Labor "gutted" the apprentice system by repeatedly cutting employer incentive payments between 2011 and 2013. Doug Cole is an aircraft engineer who recently completed his apprenticeship. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer In the battleground seat of Parramatta, for example, there has been a 47 per cent decline in apprentices, falling from 4347 shortly after Tony Abbott took office in September 2013 to 2286. The bellwether NSW seats of Eden-Monaro and Lindsay have registered falls of 30 per cent and 21 per cent, respectively. In the outer-Melbourne seat of Chisholm there are 878 fewer apprentices than the 2314 registered to employers in 2013.

Victorian marginals Bruce and Deakin have 30 per cent and 24 per cent fewer apprentices, respectively. Special Minister of State Scott Ryan has unveiled the next tranche of political entitlements reforms. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Labor claims the falling take up of apprenticeships is a direct result of the $1 billion stripped from trades support programs since the change of government, including the abolition of the 'Tools for Your Trade' (TFYT) program - which paid $5500 to apprentices over two years - and other training and mentoring programs. The Coalition replaced the program with a loans scheme which has been taken up by just 40,000 apprentices in the past two years. Concern at the dearth of apprentices in the system in 2016 extends beyond the complaints of Labor and unions, with Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox recently describing the proportion of apprentices and trainees in the workforce as "worryingly low" at just 2.7 per cent.

The Ai Group called for apprenticeships to be "put at the top of election platforms" for both major parties. The Coalition has not announced any apprentice-specific policies during the election but the Minister for Vocational Education and Skills, Scott Ryan, said the Youth Jobs PaTH Program, announced in the budget, "helps equip young job seekers by getting them ready" for employment. "Labor gutted Australian apprenticeships, cutting employer incentive payments nine times between 2011 and 2013, a total of $1.2 billion," he said. "In contrast, the Coalition has not cut a single incentive payment to employers of apprentices. Labor's savage $1.2 billion cut from apprentices triggered a 25 per cent drop in take-ups, the biggest drop on record." Shadow vocational education spokeswoman Sharon Bird, who obtained the FOI documents, said the system was "in crisis" to the detriment of high unemployment areas.

"In some of these areas, we risk long-term generational unemployment if we don't help young people into quality training such as an apprenticeship. The Liberals have completely failed to take the massive drop in apprentices seriously. They have cut support at every budget and failed to provide any solutions to the problem," she said. "With less than a week to go until the election they have nothing to offer the young people desperate for an apprenticeship or the older retrenched workers who could use the apprenticeship system to get a new start." In total, western Sydney has lost 10,642 apprentices and western Melbourne 4782, while the national total fell 28 per cent from 383,562 to 278,583, according to records held by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research, a Commonwealth and states-owned not-for-profit company. Doug Cole, from Sydney's south, told Fairfax Media he did not hesitate in rejecting a university offer in favour of an apprenticeship as an aircraft maintenance engineer.

Mr Cole, 25, completed the four-year apprenticeship two-and-a-half years ago and has not looked back. He was one of about 20 to win an apprenticeship place based at Sydney Airport in 2009. "I'm grateful I did it when I did it. It wasn't the easiest thing to get when I got it and it is a lot harder now," he said. "I think an apprenticeship is valuable in that it gets young people in the workforce and teaches them valuable skills at a much younger age. It opened up my eyes to the world. "I got accepted into a uni degree in environmental science and in policing but have always been a hands-on person." Mr Cole said he enjoyed the working lifestyle and earning money at a younger age when his friends were at university.

He is now funding his way through a TAFE diploma course in aviation. - with Anna Patty Follow us on Twitter