Page 1594 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 17 May 1994
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When we saw that we thought, "That makes a lot of sense, so let us talk to some of the players". We talked to the Housing Industry Association, the Master Builders Association, CONFACT and the council, and we found that in fact it did not have the support of everybody on the tripartite council. The MBA did not support it, the HIA did not support it, and CONFACT did not support it. So who did support it? Why did not CONFACT, the MBA and the HIA support it? They all said, as one, "Listen, where is there evidence that this particular industry in the ACT is not doing the job that it was supposed to have done through the training guarantee levy imposed by the Federal Labor Government in the past and which has been suspended for two years?". In their own words, they found no evidence of any particular industry being deficient in providing the training that the training guarantee levy was set up to provide. Is it any wonder that the Opposition continues to ask more questions?
Mr Berry: It is no surprise at all that you would criticise anything going to workers.
MR DE DOMENICO: We look forward to your contribution to this debate, to see how thorough you were in examining the Bill and whether you are just here to tick whatever the trade union movement wants, or what certain arms of the trade union movement want, Mr Berry. I personally look forward to an intelligent contribution from you. Talking about intelligent contributions, let me get back to my comments on this Bill. After having had a good look at the Bill, the Opposition noticed that it provides for the levy to be within the range of 0.2 per cent to 0.5 per cent of the value of construction work. The level of the levy, the Minister said, will be set "by the appropriate Minister after consultation with a board which is to be established under the Bill". Those words, "the appropriate Minister", are interesting. When industry training and construction industry levies were talked about before in this house it was not the Minister for Education who had the carriage of such negotiations; it was the Minister for Industrial Relations. One wonders why Mr Wood introduced this Bill. Is Mr Wood's heart really behind this Bill?
Mr Wood: Go away.
MR DE DOMENICO: We will not go away, Mr Wood. There are other questions to ask that still have not been answered. A lot of questions have not been answered. As I said, Madam Speaker, we are talking about a specific levy, in other words, a tax - let us not mince words; it is a tax - on a particular industry in the ACT which, at a minimum, may provide the ACT Government with $1.8m. Look at that figure of $1.8m and look at the funds raised by the training guarantee levy, the Federal Government's scheme. Nationally, that was able to raise only $1.4m. Here we have a situation where this Government expects us to support a Bill which, at a minimum, will raise $1.8m in the ACT, whereas a Federal piece of legislation, similar legislation, across all industries, managed to raise only $1.4m.
Mrs Carnell: Because people were already training.
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