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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (21 November) . . Page.. 3998 ..

MR OSBORNE (continuing):

I do not know how far $300,000 will go. Once again, I am assuming you are hoping that there will be some injection from the private sector. I look forward to hearing what you have to say, Minister.

That is it in a nutshell, Mr Speaker. My greatest concern is, firstly, whether the money will just be going to prop up MBA training. If that is not the case, I would like to hear Mr De Domenico deny it on the floor of the house. I would like him to guarantee that the new apprentices will not just be transferred from any existing scheme, whether it be CITEA or MBA Group Training. I would like him to comment on those points I have raised today, just to put my mind at ease.

I sincerely hope what he has had to say is the truth. I hope what he has written in the letters and what Mr Evans wrote in his letter are the truth as well. I hope what Mrs Carnell has said is the truth. By requiring all these undertakings from you, Mr De Domenico, I hope I am not giving you enough rope to hang yourself. If anything happens contrary to what you have said, whether it be in the letter or here in the Assembly, perhaps you should ask Mr Kaine to move over up the back there. That is how seriously I am taking this matter. It has been a very tough one. I hope it is true. I hope you are able to find 70 new apprentices jobs. I hope you are able to find some unemployed people some work, albeit only temporarily. I suppose it is better than what they are doing now.

Mr Speaker, I look forward to hearing what Mr De Domenico has to say, to put my mind at rest. As I said, this has required a lot of thought and is something that has taken a long time to decipher. I look forward to hearing from the Minister before we come to vote on this very important issue.

MS TUCKER (4.33): I seek leave to speak again.

Leave granted.

MS TUCKER: The Greens will be supporting this Bill, if we can get the guarantees Mr Osborne has just detailed. We have also found this issue extremely difficult to make a decision on. We have had a large number of meetings with the various players and briefings from the bureaucrats. In this climate of high unemployment, particularly high youth unemployment, we cannot just shrug our shoulders at training proposals. If the MBA proposal for a skills centre will create 70 new apprentices, or even 60, for that matter, that sounds almost too good to be true. Questions were raised in the earlier debate about the legitimacy of the MBA proposal, and during the debate Mrs Carnell and Mr De Domenico both gave a number of guarantees. We would, as would Mr Osborne, like these reiterated, and we also believe it is appropriate that they are reflected in a contract which is tabled in the Assembly.

The issue of whether the skills centre proposal would really bring about new apprentices or trainees is very important to us. The Government has guaranteed that the apprentices in skills centres will in fact be new apprentices, that they are not being transferred from anywhere else. I have also indicated to the Minister's office that we would like the contract tabled with this information in it. They also guaranteed that no money would go

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