Page 1603 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 17 May 1994
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Probably the most telling feature as to why you change legislation was in the explanatory memorandum for this Bill. I quote the second paragraph:
A primary objective of the scheme set out in the Bill is to satisfy the requirements for a recognised alternative training levy scheme under the Training Guarantee (Administration) Act 1990 of the Commonwealth.
It will be really easy to achieve that. All we have to do is throw out this Bill because, at least for the next two years, there are no requirements under the Commonwealth's Training Guarantee (Administration) Act 1990. On that basis, how we handle this Bill is very simple. We simply do nothing. That is taken from the explanatory memorandum to the Bill. It says that the primary objective of the Bill is to meet the training guarantee levy requirements of the Commonwealth, which, as of "Working Nation" of 4 May, became nothing. It is very simple.
Why, then, are we going ahead with this Bill today when the Commonwealth quite definitely has laid down the guidelines? The Commonwealth, in a paper called "Working Nation" that they put forward to produce more jobs in industry in this country, have suggested that it is important to put aside things like the training guarantee levy in an attempt to produce more jobs - more jobs for young people, more jobs for Australians. They have accepted that this sort of impost on business can do nothing but cause problems for industry. There is no evidence whatsoever that this levy will produce one more job. In fact, if the Commonwealth Government's view is any indication, this will cause the loss of jobs. So we have no new jobs; we have no obvious need for this particular money as it seems that the current money cannot be spent. We have no reason for the change at all. Why are we setting up a new body to administer this money that we do not need, to start with, and that will not produce any jobs? Obviously, all it will do is produce a new infrastructure and more administrative costs - administrative costs that, again, will not produce one new job in the industry.
Why are we doing this? It can only be because somebody - I cannot imagine who it would be - is desperate for a new administrative infrastructure. I served on the Retail Trades Industry Training Council for a number of years in many positions, including vice-president. The whole point of industry training councils is to bring together all the major players in an industry and to put together a training program that suits all parts of that industry. If that is what we are doing here, how come a very large percentage of the ITC, the employers, think that this a sham? They think that this is unnecessary. They think that this is not the way to go and that it will not produce anything.
Mr De Domenico: And it is a tax on them directly.
MRS CARNELL: That is the case. What do we do by going down this track in terms of the smaller operators?
Debate interrupted.
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