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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (2 December) . . Page.. 4258 ..

Debate resumed from 13 November 1997, on motion by Mr Stefaniak:

That this Bill be agreed to in principle.

MR BERRY (Leader of the Opposition) (12.13): Mr Speaker, when this Bill - - -

Ms McRae: He has a read speech.

Mrs Carnell: No; this is the debate.

Mr Humphries: This is the next thing. He strained his brain doing that much, but he has gone on to other things now.

MR BERRY: You have to get personal, don't you, Gary? Just sit down quietly and listen.

MR SPEAKER: Order! Let us move on.

Ms McRae: Why couldn't we go to the cricket? You have organised this so badly.

MR BERRY: Why don't you just go to the cricket? We will give you a pair to go to the cricket, if it is bothering you.

When the Government first introduced this Bill, what I was most surprised to find absent from the Minister's speech was some crowing about the 150 new jobs that were to be created by the increase in the amount of money which was to be transferred to the training fund from the money collected by the Long Service Leave Board. I searched right through the speech. I recall a quite strong emphasis on the 150 jobs that were to be created by the transfer of this money in the first place, when this situation was first created. When the amount of money for the training fund was increased from 10 per cent to 40 per cent, the Government went on at great length about the 150 new jobs. I must say that I am disappointed that the Government has not been able to crow about achieving those 150 new jobs as a result of the transfer of the funds.

Mr Speaker, one other matter behind this, which is extremely important, is the inability of the Government to get on with its work and achieve reasonable outcomes, with the time available to it. We are talking about a situation over several years where the Government has indicated that it was to come up with an alternative means of collecting funding for training. It uses, as an excuse, that over the last two years circumstances have changed. I will come back to that in a minute. The first matter I want to deal with is the period of time that the Government has had available to it to find a new measure of funding for training in the ACT. Two years have passed. A sunset clause was included to ensure that at 31 December the 40 per cent levy on moneys collected from the Long Service Leave Board would conclude. At the time that this legislation was first introduced, Labor resisted its carriage, but it was eventually supported by the Government and others.

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