Page 1618 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 17 May 1994
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There are offsets because builders were already, in some measure, paying an amount of money. They were already paying something there. The training guarantee levy is also a mechanism which now they do not need.
Let me put this training guarantee levy into perspective. It was one of Ms Szuty's concerns. It was a tax driven system. Employers were required to pay 1.5 per cent of their payroll, on payrolls greater than $226,000, or they had to pay the same amount to the Taxation Office. The $226,000 threshold eliminated approximately 90 per cent of the small employers from paying the levy. That means that 10 per cent of the industry was funding the training of the other 90 per cent. This is a much more equitable system. Those who were paying will be paying less.
A further point that Mr De Domenico made was that this is overly bureaucratic. Yet Mr Kaine was complaining because it was not bureaucratic; that it was in the hands of people beyond the bureaucracy. The whole thrust of the training agenda - something Mr De Domenico does not know about - is to put control of this training into the hands of industry. The industry knows the needs. That is why we have the ACT Regional Building and Construction Industry Training Council.
Mr De Domenico: Competency based training is what it is about.
Mrs Carnell: Where is your competency based training agenda?
MR WOOD: No, I am sorry. You have missed it. It is not bureaucratised, Mr De Domenico. It is put out to industry to determine its priorities, to draw up its programs and to run those programs. The level of bureaucracy is this: The Building Controller will collect the funds, and he has estimated a very low impost on him of one per cent to do so. There is a very low level of administration for that. So you were quite wrong; it is not heavily bureaucratised. It is where the industry wants it to be.
Madam Speaker, there has been quite a deal of nonsense spoken by Mr De Domenico and Mrs Carnell about the inability of the industry to use funds already available to it. They are quite wrong. They were absolutely misleading in the things they said. Ms Szuty showed that she had done a little more research. She went out and got some figures. She did a bit of homework and was quite sensible in what she said. I will provide her with some information that she was not able to get in the time available.
Mr De Domenico: Will you provide us with the same information?
MR WOOD: It is a lesson to you. Perhaps you should have done the same thing. It was said that there is $436,000 in the council's funds. So what? You would be complaining to me if they had zero in their funds. You would be saying that they cannot run something. That amount of money is generally committed. There is a sum of $302,000 - I think that is the figure that Ms Szuty was asking about - - - (Extension of time granted) That $302,000 is the amount that has come into the council's fund from the long service leave levy. There is a program for a competency development service, $208,000; a gas appliance fitting program, $32,000; plaster trades training, $32,000; administration $30,000. Those funds have been committed.
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