Page 427 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 27 June 1989
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with great foresight, but I ask the Minister to eliminate clause 16. Mr Speaker, I am in your hands. I would welcome a chance to move an amendment to ask for the deletion of clause 16.
MR SPEAKER: Dr Kinloch, the amendment has been circulated, and we will investigate that in the detail stage of the Bill.
MR HUMPHRIES (4.17): Mr Speaker, the Vocational Training Bill 1989 is, apart from the Bill just carried a few moments ago, the first substantial piece of legislation to come before this Assembly. Although the Government might claim otherwise, I think it reflects the priorities of the Federal Government and its desire to see changes in this area more than necessarily those of this Government, but I am sure this Government endorses the principles behind it, and indeed, as I will go on to say in a few moments, so does the Opposition.
The Bill is laudable. It reflects the desire, according to the Deputy Chief Minister's presentation speech, "to modernise ACT provision for the administration of industry training and to bring the ACT into line with changes which have been made in most States in recent years".
That, of course, is a very important aim, but legislation such as this needs to go some way beyond that. It goes, of course, in its general object to the competitiveness of ACT industry specifically and of Australian industry in general. It goes to the establishment, Mr Speaker, of a work force which responds constantly and freely to the demands of a changing world.
Training, of course, is crucial to that kind of responsiveness. It is quite pointless having first-class equipment, first-class facilities, and a first-class working environment, if you like, without at the same time having workers who are proficient in the use of that equipment or who can properly utilise that environment.
Technological change is a challenge to almost every workplace in this country. As those of us who have been out in the work force know, changes occur rapidly, sometimes bewilderingly rapidly, and the necessity to keep up with those changes is quite enormous, particularly in some occupations. Unfortunately, the innate conservatism of our industrial system often militates against the technological flexibility which the ACT specifically and Australia in general so desperately need in order that we might retain our position at the cutting edge of international competitiveness.
So hopefully, Mr Speaker, there is a need, an urgent need, to update the law in this particular area concerning apprenticeships. The original Apprenticeship Act which this Bill repeals is a 1936 Act. It is more than 50 years old and many parts of it, I think, reflect that fact.
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