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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 11 Hansard (24 September) . . Page.. 3279 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

By accepting 10 per cent, you accept that it can be used for training purposes. Increasing the 10 per cent to 40 per cent in times when youth unemployment is unacceptably high and the industry is at a low and therefore cannot really afford to employ a lot of apprentices would seem a logical extension of the 1990 position that Mr Berry and those opposite had already agreed to. Mr Berry suggests that this money is going to the MBA training fund. Mr Berry is wrong again. It is not going to the training fund; it is going to the on-site skills centre, which has a tripartite board of the MBA, the union and the Government. That is the entity that will manage this fund. It is that simple.

It is also important for those opposite, and probably more important for those on the crossbenches, to realise that this scheme is not a $300,000 scheme. It is a $1m scheme. If this legislation is passed, $300,000 will come from the long service leave levy fund. The rest, though, will come from the industry - $572,800 from employer reimbursements and $70,000 from the MBA. We are not talking about the ACT Government plugging $300,000 into the MBA, with nothing coming out the other end. We are talking about the long service leave fund plugging $300,000 into a $1m training scheme that will ensure, in that part of it, that 70 young apprentices can continue on-site training. On top of that $300,000, as I have already explained, there will be direct funding to employers for the placement of 50 extra apprentices and funding for an additional 25 at-risk apprentices or trainees - people who might lose their jobs if we do not ensure that their employers can continue to afford them.

I come back to the bottom line. The bottom line is that if we pass this legislation we can start today - not in 12 months' time, not in two years' time - on planning for 150 jobs in Canberra. At the end of this year, when apprenticeships are being put together, those people can really look to a new approach. Mr Berry made the comment that this Government cut $6m out of training funds.

Ms Follett: Four.

MRS CARNELL: He said $6m about four times. That is fundamentally incorrect. This Government has spent on labour market programs exactly what the previous Government put in their forward estimates for training funds. This Assembly, in a non-partisan manner, should come to grips with the fact that we have to look at all ways we can to ensure that young people have jobs and not just at using this money at this time to give greater benefits to people who already have jobs. We simply have to focus on people without jobs, people who, if we do nothing here today, could still be without jobs.

MR MOORE (11.13): Rather than the Minister closing the debate, Mr Speaker, I will speak. It has been a very interesting morning of debate on this issue. A whole series of issues are still outstanding. A series of claims were made by Mr Berry. He has just brought around a sheet of paper which he believes illustrates his contention that the $300,000 or so will go to the MBA through the process that the Chief Minister said.

Mr Berry: No, through the contract with the MBA.

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