Page 1610 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 17 May 1994
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Mr Wood: You disagree with your colleague. You disagree with Mr De Domenico. He said that it was going to be bureaucratised.
MR KAINE: You had better listen to me, Mr Wood; this is very important. With this Bill, Mr Wood and the other members of this Government are setting aside a perfectly good system, which fixes accountability on the Minister, in favour of fixing responsibility on a board, which is required, we are told, to administer this in accordance with a funding framework that does not exist. What sort of accountability is that? It is typical of the inability of this Government, these apprenticed boardroom members, to think through the basics of the legislation they put before us. It is poor legislation. It is legislation that we do not need. It is legislation that was left behind everywhere else in the world, and was left behind here in Australia by their Federal mates two weeks ago when they abandoned the training levy. Yet we have these people here trying to justify this tonight. How farcical a situation can you get? The situation speaks for itself. Members of this Assembly should reject this legislation.
MS SZUTY (9.51): In speaking in the in-principle stage of this debate, I would like to inform members that I have been specifically asked by the Minister for Education and Training, Mr Wood, to keep an open mind on this issue until he has had the opportunity to make specific comments in his concluding remarks which may serve to fully inform me and other members of this Assembly about the issues. I will do that, Madam Speaker, but I should say that the Minister's arguments will need to be convincing. On the strengths of the arguments that the Opposition has proposed tonight, I think they will need to be very convincing.
Both my colleague Mr Moore and I have received representations from a wide range of people interested in expressing to us their views on the provisions in these Bills. In fact, requests for meetings began coming into our offices before the Bills were tabled, which is a most unusual occurrence. It has not helped either, Madam Speaker, that the representations have presented widely divergent views on what needs to occur or does not need to occur with respect to training needs within the building and construction industry. The views expressed, Madam Speaker, also have their origins in debate now a number of years old, and a number of speakers have referred to that this evening. In fact, the resolution of the ACT Regional Building and Construction Industry Training Council with regard to the establishment of a levy was passed on 10 September 1990. I would like, Madam Speaker, to read that resolution to the Assembly. It says:
The ACT Building and Construction Industry Training Council supports the establishment of an industry training levy, collected through the building permit system, with provision for equivalent contribution where such permit is not required, provided the following principles are guaranteed by the legislation establishing this scheme:
1. Exemption from meeting the requirements of the Commonwealth Training Guarantee Scheme for the building and construction industry in the ACT.
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