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that it is our industry partners who employ the work force and provide much of the training through on-the-job arrangements. We will be increasingly looking to employers to take an even greater responsibility for the on-the-job training and to continue to contribute to the resourcing of training. In this context it is important that industry play a major role in the management and coordination of the new system.

Perhaps the most significant of all the reforms was the national vocational education and training system agreement successfully concluded in July 1992 by all State and Territory governments and the Commonwealth. This agreement, which led to the passage of Commonwealth legislation forming the Australian National Training Authority, commits State and Territory governments to establish a State training agency to deal with the authority. Interim measures were taken by the previous Government to ensure that the day-to-day functions of the State training agency were undertaken by the Vocational Training Authority. A comprehensive consultation process was undertaken within the ACT education and training community, aimed at obtaining input on the shape and form of a permanent agency. The preferred option was a model based on enhancement of the Vocational Training Authority. Most respondents felt that the authority model provided a strong foundation on which to build a State training agency. This view builds on the fact that the Australian National Training Authority Act requires each State and Territory to undertake a new range of functions associated with strategic planning and funding of training which need to be built into the functions and structure of the new agency. It was in this context that the Carnell Liberal Government decided to proceed with the development of legislation which, I acknowledge, had largely been completed before the election.

The legislation has two principal objectives. First, it gives effect to the Territory's responsibilities under the national vocational education and training system agreement. Second, it modernises current arrangements for the management of vocational education and training in the ACT, resulting in the repeal of the Vocational Training Act 1989. Under the new arrangements for managing the vocational education and training system, authority staff will be stepping back from close involvement with employers and apprentices and trainees. Instead, it will be expected that employers and employees will take greater responsibility for the operation of their training agreements. Emphasis will be on the management of the vocational education and training on a system-wide basis. It gives me a great deal of satisfaction that such an approach sits well with the Government's concerns about red tape and excessive regulation. This Bill before you is, therefore, the result of extensive consultation. It provides a comprehensive framework for the future management and coordination of vocational education and training in the ACT. It will also confirm our linkages to the new nationally integrated system of vocational education and training.

In addition to the two principal objectives outlined above, the Bill provides for incorporation of the functions currently performed by the ACT Accreditation Agency. The agency was established by administrative decision in 1990 following a review of accreditation arrangements in the ACT. The Government's commitment to the agreement providing for the national framework for the recognition of training now requires that the accreditation and recognition functions be underpinned by legislation. It is also

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