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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 11 Hansard (24 September) . . Page.. 3277 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

the Assembly of those days agreed to 10 per cent of the long service leave levy being used for training purposes, they did so at odds with the Long Service Leave Board. The board simply do not agree with that sort of approach. Mr Berry is quite right; they certainly do not agree with increasing that either. They believe that all of it, the 10 per cent included, should be used for the current entitlements of people who need long service leave. That is really where they stand.

It is really important to understand that the amount of money in this Bill, the 40 per cent, will be spent on three separate things. Quite significantly, Mr Berry seems to have overlooked that. The first one is on-site training of up to 70 apprentices who do not have employers. I know that Mr Berry does understand how apprenticeships work, so I will not suggest that I need to explain it; but, listening to his speech, you would not have known that he understood how apprenticeships work. Those 70 apprentices who do not have employers need a scheme that provides on-site training if they are to achieve the end of becoming qualified tradespeople. This on-site skills scheme will be run and organised by a cross-industry skills centre. The on-site skills centre will have three parties involved in it - the MBA, the union and the Government - as I understand it. If this Assembly passes the Bill, the on-site skills centre will be funded from the 40 per cent of the long service leave levy which will be set aside for training. That will train up to 70 apprentices. There is no money, not one dollar, going to the MBA training fund. Mr Berry is just wrong again. The MBA training fund will not receive one dollar from government. The body that will receive the money if this Assembly passes the Bill is the on-site skills centre, which has the union, the Government and the MBA as equal partners in it. That particular group will run this centre, which will ensure that 70 young apprentices go through their training and become tradespeople.

As well as that, we have direct funding for employers for the placement of an additional 50 apprentices. That is 50 young people who would not be able to get an apprenticeship in the current economic climate. That is 50 new jobs; 50 young people getting an opportunity to enter the work force. On top of that, there is funding for an additional 25 at-risk apprentices and trainees. Those are people who do have employers but whose employers are doing it a bit tough and may not be able to keep their apprentices and their trainees on. That is 150 jobs for young Canberrans. Where is that money coming from? It is coming from the long service leave training levy, which the Actuary and the Auditor-General tell us is overfunded. It is money sitting in the bank earning interest. It is money that the Auditor-General and the Actuary tell us is not needed to pay long service leave entitlements at current levels for current employees.

I would have thought in the current economic circumstances that those opposite, Mr Berry particularly, would be willing to support anything that meant that money that was not being used for anything, that was sitting in a bank, could be used to employ 150 young people. It is important to realise that the need for apprentices and trained tradespeople over the next four to five years will be quite significant. We have a problem at the moment. The construction industry is very flat, as we all know. Therefore, it is hard for people in the building industry to put on apprentices.

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