 Tonight we are celebrating excellence. Apprentices, trainees, wonderful trainers and teachers, businesses, training organisations from right across Queensland and it is such an exciting night to just value and recognise vocational education and training and what it means to so many people and how it touches so many lives. It's really important because we pride ourselves on having a quality training system in Queensland and when you come together on nights like tonight and you see the high profile organisations and outstanding people who have completed qualifications and they set those standards for other organisations and people to follow and so I think having those benchmarks in place that we celebrate and acknowledge really makes for a much better vet system right through Queensland and continues to promote the high end outcomes that we get. I love these awards and I love the fact that it's packed. There's a huge amount of noise which means a huge amount of excitement so once we get in there and get going then we're just celebrating the best that Queensland has in training and vocational studies and you know and young people. It's important for Newscorp to stand behind those who pursue vocational careers and support those who choose that as a career path so for us it's about getting behind whether it's students who are leaving school through to those career changes making a career choice late in life. Busy at Work has been a sponsor for many years, long before me and we're very passionate about apprentices and traineeships. We're all about getting young people into work and more broadly getting people into work you know and we see apprenticeships and traineeships as a long-term sustainable pathway and a career for people. Collaboration award is CQ University and Logic Apps. Look I think that if you've got an initiative which is really about improving the quality outcomes for students then I think have a go at applying because you might just be surprised at how well received that is and certainly I think this initiative is born out of passion and and certainly something that was really about a better outcome for students and I think that was really the secret to the success so yeah, good to go. We're delighted to give some encouragement to those young people to develop their skills develop their develop and tone the appropriate quals and accept themselves ready for the challenges that I'm sure lie ahead in their careers. Well they have a go there's nothing to lose it actually helps you focus on what you do and gives you a chance to improve you know iron sharpens iron we see other great businesses doing things and it just gives you that more incentive to go along so I think it's well worth the exercise helps you have a bit of a check on how your business is going in the training sector and yeah have a crack. My background is teaching so these awards are really meaningful for me so I want to make sure that we get the very best that we can out of the training system both the staff and the systems that they use. It means the world to me it means the world to my school to my teachers to my business that I did my training in it's just an extra bonus that I did not expect from an undertaking school based traineeship. My careers santo teacher offered the opportunity my brother in the past had taken it up and he'd been successful and you know I knew that if I wanted to get in front with other students or get a pathway this opportunity is The Bob Marshman trainee of the year award is Ben Nedwidge. Certainly yep it looks really really good on Rose Mayne. Employers will see that and none of this person is dedicated they're committed and they can do the job properly so yeah it's very beneficial. They're studying full time working full time balancing family you know friend commitments and all that stuff I guess it feels this feels like a pretty amazing way of you know saying that I was doing the right thing and feeling confident in my choices I guess to take this pathway. And the winner of the Harry Horne's Child Apprentice of the Year award is Ashleigh Brown. Congratulations it's an honour and I'm very humbled to be standing up here with you. We know each and every one of these organisations truly value training and that's why they support these events so we we truly do thank them tonight we could not do this without their sponsorship and it's just as important that we we recognise them and we thank them so much for their support.